Person

Meston, Archibald (1851 - 1924)

Born
1851
Donside, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Died
11 March 1924
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Occupation
Explorer and Journalist

Summary

Archibald Meston was an observer of natural history and studied the habits, customs and languages of the Aboriginals he encountered. His book "Geographic History of Queensland" was published in Brisbane.

Archival resources

John Oxley Library, Manuscripts and Business Records Collection, State Library of Queensland

  • Archibald Meston - Records, 1880 - 1900, OM64-17; John Oxley Library, Manuscripts and Business Records Collection, State Library of Queensland. Details
  • Archibald Meston - Records, 1923 - 1924, OM72-82; John Oxley Library, Manuscripts and Business Records Collection, State Library of Queensland. Details

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

  • Archibald Meston - Records, 1880 - 1900; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

Published resources

Books

  • Lergessner, James G., The sacred ibis : Protector of Aborigines Archibald Meston and Queensland race relations (Woorim, Qld: J. Lergessner, 2009), 240 pp. Details
  • Meston, A.; and Bailey, F. M., Report of the Government Expedition to the Bellenden-Ker Range; upon the flora and fauna of that part of the Colony (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1889), 28, 127 pp. Details
  • Meston, Archibald, Queensland Aboriginals: proposed system for their improvement and preservation (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1895), 35 pp. Details
  • Meston, Archibald, Geographic history of Queensland (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1895), 228 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Stephens, S. E., 'Meston, Archibald (1851-1924), journalist, civil servant and explorer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 5: 1851 - 1890 K-Q, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1974), pp. 243-244. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A050278b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

  • Dowe, John Leslie and Broughton, Alan D., 'F.M.Bailey's taxonomy of Meston's collections from the Bennenden Ker Expedition of 1904', Austrobaileya, 7 (2008), 675-7. Details
  • McKay, Judith; and Memmott, Paul, 'Staged savagery: Archibald Meston and his Indigenous exhibits', Aboriginal history journal, 40 (2016), 181-203. Details
  • Memmott, Paul; and Richards, Jonathan, 'Where is the Aboriginal Act?: Archibald Meston and the emergence of Aboriginal policy in Queensland', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: culture, 12 (2021), 123-46. https://doi.org/10.17082/j.2205-3239.12.1.2021.2021-05. Details
  • Price, Sophie; Allen, Lindy; and Knowles, Chantal, '"The (not-so) sacred ibis": Archibald Meston, the colonial collector, and the Queensland Museum', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: culture, 12 (2021), 73-121, https://doi.org/10.17082 /j.2205-3239.12.1.2021.2021-04. Details
  • Short, Philip, 'Frederick Manson Bailey (1827 - 1915), as seen by Archibald Meston', Australasian Systematic Botany Society newsletter, 196 (2023), 13-7. Details
  • Thorpe, B., 'Archibald Meston and Aboriginal legislation in colonial Queensland', Historical studies, 21 (8) (1984), 52-67. Details
  • Turnbull, Paul, 'Australian museums, Aboriginal skeletal remains, and the imagining of human evolutionary history', Museum & society, 13 (1) (2015), 72-87. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v13i1.318. Pages 72-74, 78. Details

Resources

McCarthy, G.J.

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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