Person

Bonwick, James (1817 - 1906)

Born
8 July 1817
Lingfield, Surrey, England
Died
6 February 1906
Southwick, Sussex, England
Occupation
Anthropologist, Educational writer, Environmentalist and Teacher

Summary

James Bonwick was a competent and industrious amateur in the fields of anthropology and geography. In his professional life he worked as a teacher, historian and archivist and published widely. His 1857 book How Does a Tree Grow? Or Botany for Young Australians was the first children's botany book published in Australia with a truly Australian flavour, with eucalyptus trees being the main focus.

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Details

Born Lingfield, Surrey, England, 8 July 1817. Died Southwick, near Brighton, Sussex, 6 February 1906. Primary school teacher, England 1833-41; manager, proposed normal school, Hobart Town 1841-42; established a boarding school, Hobart 1843, moved it to Glenorchy 1847; opened a private school, Adelaide 1850; Victorian goldfields 1852; lecturer, then proprietor of "Australian Gold Digger's Monthly Magazine and Colonial Family Visitor" 1852-53; unsuccessful land agency 1853-55; opened boarding school near Kew 1855-56; inspector, Denominatonal Schools Board 1856-59; England 1859-62; opened school at St Kilda, Melbourne 1862-75; immigration agent to lecture in England for the Queensland government 1874-75, 1882-83; transcription of early Australian source material for various state governments 1883-1902. Portraits of him are in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

Archival resources

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

  • Angus & Robertson - Records, 1824 - 1933, ML MSS 314; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • James Bonwick - Records, 1776 - 1815, A6984-6; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • James Bonwick - Records, 1841 - 1900; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • James Bonwick - Records, 1796 - 1800, A6987; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

  • James Bonwick - Records, 1801 - 1803, H 11598 and others; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Books

  • Bonwick, James, Discovery and Settlement of Port Phillip: being a History of the country now called Victoria, up to the arrival of Mr. Superintendent Latrobe, in October, 1839 (Melbourne: Robertson, 1856), 142 pp. Details
  • Bonwick, James, How does a tree grow? or, Botany for young Australians (Melbourne: James J. Blundell & Co., 1857), 42 pp. Details
  • Pescott, Edward Edgar, James Bonwick: a writer of school books and histories, with a bibliography of his writings (Melbourne: H. A. Evans, 1939), 43 pp. Details
  • Pybus, Cassandra, A very secret trade: the dark story of gentlemen collectors in Tasmania (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2024), 318 pp. https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Cassandra-Pybus-Very-Secret-Trade-9781761066344. Pages 124-125, 212-213, 272, 278-279. Details
  • Wrigley, J.; and Fagg, M., Eucalypts: a Celebration (Crows Nest Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2010), 344 pp. Details

Book Sections

Journal Articles

  • Bonwick, J., 'Origins of the Tasmanians geologically considered', Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, 2 (2) (1870), 121-31, https://doi.org/10.2307/3014416. Details
  • Bonwick, J., 'On the origin of the Tasmanians geologically considered', Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, 2 (2) (1870), 121-31. Details

Resources

See also

  • Science and the making of Victoria, with Royal Society of Victoria, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/smv/index_b.html. Details
  • Laidlaw, Zoë, 'Settler-colonial philanthropy and Indigenous dispossession' in Dhoombak goobgoowana: a history of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne, Ross L. Jones, James Waghorne and Marcia Langton, eds (Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2024). Details

Gavan McCarthy [P004098] and Christine Moje

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 6 October 2023

EOAS ID: biogs/P000083b.htm

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"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260