Person
Buddicom, Robert Arthur (1874 - 1951)
- Born
- 7 November 1874
Shropshire, England - Died
- 14 February 1951
Kyancutta, South Australia, Australia - Occupation
- Museum director and Palaeontologist
- Alternative Names
- Bedford, Robert (Also known as)
Summary
Robert Buddicom (later Robert Bedford) was a keen palaeontologist who made considerable contributions to geology especially in the fields of fossil Archaeocyatha and meteorites. He had a varied career in the United Kingdom, including working as a museum curator, market gardener, a demonstrator and lecturer in a London hospital, and founder of the short-lived magazine, Life studies: the journal of our society. He migrated to Australia in 1915, changing his name to Robert Bedford, and settling in Kyancutta, South Australia. For a time he was occupied in farming, but also provided medical services, mined guano, and from 1922 ran a general store. He sent regular weather reports from Kyancutta to Adelaide, resulting in the recognition of Kyancutta as an official weather-station. Continuing his interest in palaeontology, he travelled through South Australia looking for fossils. Aboriginal relics were also among the material he collected. The Henbury meteorite craters in Central Australia were a focus in the 1930s. This caused some ructions with some members of the South Australian geological establishment who wanted a reserve declared to prevent just anyone from collecting specimens. In 1929 Buddicom (as Beford) opened the Kyancutta Museum to house his collections. From 1934 he published the Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum.
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Details
Chronology
- 1897
- Education - BA, University of Oxford
- 1897 - 1898
- Career position - Oxford Biological Scholar, Marine Biological Station, Naples, Italy
- 1899 - 1910
- Award - Fellow, Geological Society of London
- 1900 - 1901
- Career position - Curator, Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery
- 1902
- Career position - Founder and Editor, Life studies: the journal of our society
- 1906 - 1914
- Career position - Demonstrator and lecturer, London Hospital Medical College
- 1915
- Life event - Migrated to Australia
- 1920
- Career event - Founder, Adelaide Rationalist Society
- 1929
- Career event - Opened the Kyancutta Museum and Library to house his palaeontological specimens
- 1931 - 1937
- Career event - Examined meteorite craters, Henbury, Central Australia
Published resources
Resources
- 'Bedford, Robert', Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q21537396. Details
- 'Bedford, Robert', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1462598. Details
McCarthy, G.J. and Helen Cohn
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 5 December 2023
- Foundation Supporter - Committee to Review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education