Published Resources Details
Book Section
- Title
- The history and significance of the Macleay insect collection
- In
- Some sources for the history of Australian science: six papers presented at a workshop on the history of science in Australia
- Imprint
- History Project Incorporated, Kensington, N.S.W., 1984, pp. 23-32
- Description
Historical bibliography monograph, no. 12.
- Abstract
The oldest, and historically the most important insect collection in Australia, is in the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney. There are about a half million specimens in the collection dating from the 1750s to the present, more than 60% of which are exotic, making it the largest collection of exotic insects in Australia. Over 9000 insect types have so far been recognised in the collection but there are many yet to be discovered.
The collection was started in England before 1800 by Alexander Macleay (1767-1848) though no definite record of his first interest in entomology exists. There are insects in the collection dated to 1756 but these must have been purchased at a later date. Macleay was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1794 and his friendship with the famous British entomologists Thomas Marsham and Reverend William Kirby at this time undoubtedly spurred his entomological interests.
In addition to his own collecting, Alexander Macleay also built his collection by trading with and purchasing from ( especially at auctions) most of the significant entomologists of the day. For instance, he purchased specimens from the collections of Dru Drury, Edward Donovan, Sir Ashton Lever, Thomas Marsham, John Francillon and General Thomas Davies . Most of this material contained type specimens. The collection of Sir Ashton contained many insects presented to him by Captain Cook. Dru Drury's and John Francillon's collections contained many Fabrician types, and some of Francillon's material was collected by Surgeon General White who came to Australia in the First Fleet in 1788. Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, gave Macleay many specimens from his travels. Records of some of these transactions exist in the form of collection sale catalogues, annotated by Alexander Macleay . They are now in the care of the Linnean Society of New South Wales and are invaluable for detecting old specimens in the collection. Another important addition to his collection was the 192 species of insects collected by Captain P. P. King during his survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia between 1818 and 1822.
Related Published resources
isPartOf
- Borchardt, D. H. ed., Some sources for the history of Australian science: six papers presented at a workshop on the history of Australian science organized by the Australian academy of Science. 24-25 August 1982 (Kensington, N.S.W.: History Project Incorporated, 1984), 81 pp. Details