Person

Fitzgerald, William Vincent (1867 - 1929)

Born
21 July 1867
Mungana, Tasmania, Australia
Died
6 August 1929
Daru River, New Guinea
Occupation
Botanical collector, Botanist and Prospector

Summary

William Fitzgerald had a varied career, ranging from botanical collecting to prospecting in Tasmania and Western Australia. He moved to Western Australia in 1898. In later years he held several Western Australian Government positions. These included Chairman of the Forests Advisory Board of Western Australia (1904) and naturalist to the trigonometric survey expedition to the Kimberley region, led by Charles Crossland, in the Kimberley region (1905). Further exploration of the Fitzroy, Ord and King Rivers in search of arable land followed in 1906 at the direction of the Minister for Lands. Results from these expeditions were published in 1918. Fitzgerald described five new genera and over 210 species from Western Australia, included eucalypts and 23 species of Acacia. He was also interested in orchids. Fitzgerald sent plant material he collected to Ferdinand von Mueller and Joseph Maiden. A significant collection of his material is held by the Western Australian Herbarium. Fitzgerald died while exploring the Bismarck Ranges in Papua.

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Details

Chronology

1903
Career position - Member, Royal Commission on Forests, Western Australia
1904
Career position - Chairman, Forests Board of Western Australia
1904
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus diptera C.R.P.Andrews. Fitzgerald collected the type
1904
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus accedens W.Fitzg.
1905
Career position - Naturalist, trigonometric survey of the Kimberley regio under leader Charles Crossland
1912
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus pyriformis Turcz. var. elongata Maiden (= E. pyriformis Turcz. (1849)): Fitzgerald collected the type
1915
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus houseana W.Fitzg. ex Maiden
1916 - 1917
Military service - Served with the Australian Imperial Force
1923
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus collina W.Fitzg.
1934
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus fitzgeraldii Blakely was named for Fitzgerald

Colleague

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

National Herbarium, Melbourne

  • William Vincent Fitzgerald - Records, 1892 - 1894, MSS M54; National Herbarium, Melbourne. Details

Western Australia Herbarium

  • William Vincent Fitzgerald - Records, 1905 - 1906, 58(044) Fit; Western Australia Herbarium. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Journal Articles

  • Fitzgerald, W. V., 'Additions to the West Australian flora, 1: species hitherto undescribed', Journal of the Western Australian Natural History Society, 1 (1904), 3-36. Details
  • Fitzgerald, W. V., 'New Australian plants', Journal of Botany, British and Foreign, 50 (1912), 18-24. Details
  • Fitzgerald, William Vincent, 'The botany of the Kimberleys, northwest Australia', Journal and proceedings of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 3 (1918), 102-224. Details
  • Kenneally, K. F., ' An index to W. V. Fitzgerald's annotated species list published in "The botany of the Kimberleys, north-west Australia"', Australian Systematic Botany Society newsletter, 46 (1986), 1-7. Details
  • Ludewig, Alexandra, 'John Staer (1850 - 1933): the patronym behind Eucalyptus staeri, the Albany Blackbutt', Historical Records of Australian Science, 34 (2) (2023), 123-35. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23003. Details
  • Maslin, B. R. and Cowan, R. S., 'William Vincent Fitzgerald's species of Acacia (Leguminosae : Mimosoideae) : typification of names', Nuytsia, 9 (3) (1994), 387-98, https://doi.org/10.58828/nuy00216. Details
  • Short, P. S., ' William V. Fitzgerald: miscellaneous notes on his NW Australian collections, publications and manuscripts', Australian Systematic Botany Society newsletter, 75 (1993), 1-6. Details

Resources

See also

  • 'List of eucalypts published under this authority use abbreviation search 'W.Fitzg.'and genus 'Eucalyptus'', Australian Plant Name Index (APNI), Australian National Botanic Gardens, 2012, http://www.anbg.gov.au/cgi-bin/apni. Details
  • Fagg, Murray, 'Fitzgerald, William Vincent (1867–1929)', Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators, Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), 2010, https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/fitzgerald-william.html. 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

McCarthy, G.J., Moje, C. & Walsh, N.

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 8 April 2025

EOAS ID: biogs/P000408b.htm

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