Strict controls on rhubarb cultivation by the Russians from 1600 to 1800 meant that rhubarb seeds were not permitted to be transported. As a result, the story of rhubarb arriving in Scotland is one of risk-taking and great personal danger!
Dr. James Mounsey (1710–1773) was a Scottish physician who found himself employed by the Russian Army in 1736. By 1762, Mounsey had risen to the highest position in medical services in the Russian Kingdom. Due to his own ill health, he was forced to retire and leave the court of Catherine II in 1863. When leaving the court to return to Scotland, Mounsey smuggled several pounds of the highly desirable rhubarb seeds back with him and hid them in his Dumfriesshire home, located just outside of Lochmaben.
Fearing Russian assassins, Dr. Mounsey slept with a firearm by his bed and installed two doors in each room of his house to facilitate an escape.
Mounsey was recognized by the Royal Society of Arts in London in 1770, receiving a gold medal for his contribution to the introduction of rhubarb into Great Britain. He later died in 1773.
Image: James Mounsey, d. 1788. Physician to the Empress of Russia, Artist - Georg Friedrich Schmidt, CC, National Galleries of Scotland.