Hugh Charles Sampson, Bachelor of Science (BSc), was appointed in January 1904 as assistant for seed and plant production under J. Burtt Davy* in the Division of Botany, Department of Agriculture, Transvaal Colony. During 1904-1905 he collected plants on the Witwatersrand and became a member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1904 he wrote the Botanical Section of Volume 2(8) of the Transvaal Agricultural Journal and, with Burtt Davy, also those in Volumes 3(11) to 4(14), published during 1905-1906. He resigned his position in December 1905 to take up a post as agricultural expert at Madras (now Chennai), India.
In later years Sampson produced several substantial agricultural publications relating to the British colonies: The existing conditions of cotton cultivation in Nyassaland and suggestions for their improvement (London, 1922, 31 pp); The coconut palm; the science and practice of coconut cultivation (London, 1925, 262 pp); Report on the development of agriculture in British Honduras (London, 1929, 66 pp); and Report on the development of agriculture in the Bahamas (London, 1931, 30 pp). He is however probably best remembered for his work on Cultivated crop plants of the British Empire and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (London, 1936, 251 pp).
In 1927 Sampson was appointed as the first economic botanist at Kew Gardens, near London. The appointment was funded by a grant from the Empire Marketing Fund. He visited various British colonies and dominions, collecting plants in Belize, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria. Some of the Samples of seed-bearing plants collected by him are in the herbarium of the Natural History Museum, London.
