Sir Robert Sibbald (1641 - 1722) was a Scottish physician and antiquary. Educated at the Royal High School and the Universities of Edinburgh, Leiden, and Paris, he took his doctor's degree at the University of Angers in 1662, and soon afterwards settled as a physician working in Edinburgh. He resided at "Kipps Castle" near Linlithgow. In 1667 with Sir Andrew Balfour he started the botanical garden in Edinburgh, and he took a leading part in establishing the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, of which he was elected president in 1684. Both Sibbald and Balfour were proponents of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia. In 1685 he was appointed the first professor of medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He was also appointed Geographer Royal in 1682, and his numerous and miscellaneous writings deal with historical and antiquarian as well as with botanical and medical subjects. He based many of his cartographical studies on the work of Timothy Pont. He is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh in a vault against the southern wall.