Person

Backhouse, James (1794 - 1869)

Born
8 July 1794
Durham, England
Died
20 January 1869
York, England
Occupation
Botanical collector, Minister of religion and Missionary

Summary

James Backhouse was a Quaker missionary who visited Australia in 1832-1838, making observations of Australian flora and fauna as well as writing about Australian society. As a botanical collector in Australia and Norfolk Island, he contributed to the classification and taxonomy of eucalypts. Notably, Joseph Hooker, George Bentham and Ferdinand von Mueller named eucalypt specimen collected by James Backhouse. The genus Backhousia (Myrtaceae) was named in his honour.

Details

Backhouse was apprenticed to a chemist in Darlington and trained for two years in a Norwich nursery. On return to England, he gave two manuscript volumes of botanical recollections in Australia to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Commemorated by Backhousia, a genus of a myrtaceous shrub.

Chronology

1816 - 1831
Career position - Nursery owner in York, UK
1832
Life event - Arrived in Australia (Hobart)
1832 - 1834
Career position - Reported on penal settlements and Aboriginal establishments in Tasmania
1835 - 1837
Career position - Collected plant specimens for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
1835 - 1837
Career position - Reported on penal settlements and Aboriginal establishments in New South Wales, Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay
1837 - 1838
Career position - Visited Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth promoting temperance and Aboriginal protection committees
1838 - 1841
Career position - Missionary work in Africa
1841 -
Nursery Manager in York, UK
1843
Career position - A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies published in London
1844
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus maculata Hook. Backhouse collected a syntype
1866
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus siderophloia Benth. var. rostrata Benth. (= Eucalyptus fibrosa F. Muell. (1859)). Backhouse collected the syntype

Related Corporate Bodies

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

  • Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

  • James Backhouse - Records, 1831 - 1841, B730-732; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • James Backhouse - Records, Ab 124; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • James Backhouse - Records, 1835, C393; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • James Backhouse - Records, 1831 - 1868, FM 4/3134-3148; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Linnean Society of London - Records, 1792 - 1870, FM 4/2699; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

  • Linnean Society of London - Records, 1790 - 1870, M596-597; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Books

  • Backhouse, James, Extracts from the letters of James Backhouse : whilst engaged in a religious visit to van Diemen's Land, New South Wales, and South Africa accompanied by George Washington Walker (London: Harvey and Darton, 1842). Details
  • Backhouse, James, A narrative of a visit to the Australian colonies (London: Hamilton Adams, 1843), 560 pp. Details

Book Sections

Edited Books

  • Plomley, N. J. B. ed., Weep in silence: a history of the Flinders Island Aboriginal settlement, with the Flinders Island journal of George Augustus Robinson, 1835 - 1839 (Sandy Bay, Tas.: Blubberhead Press, 1987), 1034 pp. Details

Journal Articles

  • Davis, Peter, 'James Backhouse of York (1794 - 1869): missionary, traveller and botanist', Archives of natural history, 16 (3) (1989), 247-60. Details
  • Gilbert, Lionel, 'Visit of an Early Naturalist to Victoria', The Victorian naturalist (1952), 175-178. Details

Resources

See also

  • Brown, Austin J., 'Ronald Gunn's Tasmanian "agrostid" grass collections (Poaceae)', Muelleria, 40 (2022), 57-131. Details
  • Hall, Norman, Botanists of the Eucalypts: short biographies of people who have named eucalypts, whose names have been given to species or who have collected type material (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1978), 101 pp. Details
  • Maiden, J. H., 'A century of botanical endeavour in South Australia', Report of the eleventh meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 11 (1908), 158-199, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/14539732. Details
  • Maiden, J. H., 'Records of Victorian Botanists', The Victorian naturalist, 25 (1908), 101-117. Details
  • Maiden, J. H., 'Records of Australian botanists:- (a) general; (b) New South Wales', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, 42 (1908), 60-132. Details
  • Maiden, J. H., 'Records of Queensland Botanists', Report of the twelfth meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 12 (1910), 373-383. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/15379603. Details
  • Willis, J. H., 'Botanical pioneers in Victoria - I', Victorian naturalist, 66 (5) (1949), 83-9. Details
  • Willis, J. H., Botanical Pioneers in Victoria, vol. 66 ([Melbourne]: [Brown Prior Anderson], 1949), 19 pp. Details

McCarthy, G.J. & Walsh, N.

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