Backhouse, James (1794 - 1869)

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 entries

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

• McCarthy, Gavan; Smith, Ailie; Moje, Christine; Rigby, Rebecca, The Study of Australian Eucalypts, eScholarship Research Centre, 2013, http://www.eoas.info/eucalypts/index.html. Details

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

• Trott, Mary Bartram, 'Backhouse, James (1794-1869)' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 45-46. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010042b.htm. Details

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

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q2587046. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/61916541. Details
• 'Backhouse, James (1794-1869)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-638012. Details

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