Person

Atkinson, Caroline Louisa Waring (1834 - 1872)

Born
25 February 1834
Berrima, New South Wales, Australia
Died
28 April 1872
Oldbury?, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation
Naturalist and Writer
Alternative Names
  • Calvert, Caroline (married name)

Summary

Caroline Atkinson, later Calvert (her husband was James Snowden Calvert), was largely self-educated in New South Wales, a keen student of natural history and an accomplished botanical illustrator. She was also a populariser of science and published in the "Sydney Morning Herald" and the "Horticultural Magazine". Over 800 of Atkinson's specimens are in the National Herbarium of Victoria.

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Details

Atkinson was taught by her mother and developed a keen interest in botany and zoology. She wrote popular articles on botany, made drawings and sent numerous specimens to eminent botanists, including William Woolls and Ferdinand von Mueller. She was also an able taxidermist. Commemorated in the Loranthaceous genus Atkinsonia, also Erechtites atkinsoniae and Epacris calvertiana. Additionally a horticulturally distinct fern ranking as a form of Doodia caudata was named in her honour Doodia atkinsonii.

Chronology

1899
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus macarthurii Deane & Maiden. Atkinson collected a 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

Macleay Museum, University of Sydney

  • Caroline Louisa Waring Atkinson - Records, 1860 - 1865; Macleay Museum, University of Sydney. Details

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

  • Caroline Louisa Waring Atkinson - Records, 1859 - 1908, A4496-501; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

  • McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regulary edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details
  • 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

  • Atkinson, Louisa, Getrude, the emigrant: a tale of colonial life (Sydney: J R Clarke, 1857), 193 pp. Details
  • Atkinson, Louisa, A Voice From the Country (Canberra: Mulini Press, 1978), 32 pp. Details
  • Atkinson, Louisa, Excursions From Berrima and a Trip to Manaro and Molonglo in the 1870s (Canberra: Mulini Press, 1980), 38 pp. Details
  • Clarke, Patricia, Pioneer Writer: The Life of Louisa Atkinson, Novelist, Journalist, Naturalist (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990), 260 pp. Details
  • De Vries-Evans, Susanna, Pioneer Women, Pioneer Land: Yesterday's Tall Poppies (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1987), 280 pp. Details
  • Hooker, Claire, Irresistible Forces: Australian Women in Science (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2004), 215 pp. Details
  • Norton, Leonie, Women of Flowers: Botanical Art in Australia from the 1830s to the 1960s (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2009), 126 pp. Details
  • Olsen, Penny, Collecting Ladies: Ferdinand von Mueller and Women Botanical Artists (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2012), 248 pp. Details
  • Olsen, Penny, Louisa Atkinson's nature notes (Canberra: National Library of Australia in association with State Library of New South Wales, 2015), 108 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Chisholm, A. H., 'Atkinson, Caroline Louisa Waring (1834-1872), naturalist and writer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 3: 1851 - 1890 A-C, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969), pp. 59-60. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030060b.htm. Details
  • Gilbert, Lionel, 'Introduction' in Excursions From Berrima and a Trip to Manaro and Molonglo in the 1870s, Louisa Atkinson, ed. (Canberra: Mulini Press, 1980). Details
  • Harris, Margaret, 'Caroline Louise Waring Atkinson, 1834-1872' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Details
  • Moyal, Ann, 'Collectors and illustrators: women botanists of the nineteenth century' in People and Plants in Australia, Carr, D. J. and Carr, S. G. M., eds (Sydney: Academic Press, 1981), pp. 333-56. Details

Journal Articles

  • Swann, Margaret, 'Mrs. Meredith and Miss Atkinson, Writers and Naturalists', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 15 (1929), 14-29. Details
  • Swann, Margaret, 'Mrs. Meredith and Miss Atkinson, Writers and Naturalists', Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 15 (1929), 1-14. Details

Resources

Reviews

  • Norton, Leonie, Women of Flowers: Botanical Art in Australia from the 1830s to the 1960s (2009)
    Cohn, Helen M., Historical Records of Australian Science, 21 (2), (2010), 292-4, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR10012. Details
  • Olsen, Penny, Louisa Atkinson's nature notes (2015)
    Falkingham, Cecily, The Victorian naturalist, 132 (6), (2015), 181. Details
  • Olsen, Penny, Louisa Atkinson's nature notes (2015)
    Heckenberg, Kerry, Queensland Review, 23 (1), (2016), 105-6. Details

See also

  • 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
  • Maroske, Sara and Vaughan, Alison, 'Ferdinand Mueller's Female Plant Collectors: a Biographical Register', Muelleria, 32 (2014), 92-172. Details
  • Maroske, Sara and Vaughan, Alison, 'Ferdinand Mueller's Female Plant Collectors: a Biographical Register', Muelleria, 32 (2014), 92-172. Details
  • Perry, T.M., 'Atkinson, James (1795-1834), settler and author' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), p. 42. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010039b.htm. Details
  • Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details

McCarthy, G.J. & Walsh, N.

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 5 March 2019

EOAS ID: biogs/P000072b.htm

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