Person

Mitchell, Thomas Livingstone (1792 - 1855)

Born
15 May 1792
Grangemouth, Lanark, Scotland
Died
5 October 1855
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation
Explorer

Summary

Sir Thomas Mitchell was Surveyor-General of New South Wales 1828-1855 and led various expeditions into eastern Australia 1831-1836, and tropical Australia 1845-1846 which greatly expanded the common knowledge of the regions' geographical characteristics. He collected many plant specimens on his expeditions.

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Details

Chronology

1848
Taxonomy event - Collector of the type Eucalyptus citriodora Hook.
1919
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus mitchelliana Cambage was named in Mitchell's honour
1934
Taxonomy event - Collector of the type Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh. var. acuminata (Hook.) Blakely

Related Corporate Bodies

Related People

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

  • Mitchell Family - Records, 1824 - 1855, ML MSS 731; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1808 - 1830, A7130; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1829 - 1855; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1822 - 1855, A7131; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1846 - 1938, ML MSS 1118; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1836 - 1853, ML MSS 1009; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1848 - 1854, ML MSS 823; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1830 - 1880, A5357; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1841, ML DOC 1156; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1811 - 1855; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1839 - 1840, NK 5974; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1837, 52/2; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1837 - 1840, 46/2; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
  • Thomas Livingstone Mitchell - Records, 1836, MS 5189; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Books

  • Cumpston, J. H. L., Thomas Mitchell: Surveyor General and Explorer (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1954), 270 pp. Details
  • Eccleston, Gregory C., Major Mitchell's 1836 'Australia Felix' Expedition: a Re-evaluation (Clayton: Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, 1992), 176 pp. Details
  • Eccleston, Gregory C., Granville Stapylton: Australia Felix 1836, second in command to Major Mitchell (Malvern, Vic.: Evandale Publishing, 2018), 250 pp. Details
  • Kass, Terry, Sails to Satelites: the Surveyors General of NSW (1786-2007) (Bathurst, N.S.W.: New South Wales Department of Lands, 2008), 484 pp. Details
  • Mitchell, T. L., Outlines of a system of surveying: for geographical and military purposes (London: Samuel Leigh, 1827), 96 pp. Details
  • Mitchell, T. L., Three expeditions into the interior of eastern Australia: with descriptions of the recently explored region of Australia Felix, and of the present colony of New South Wales, 2 vols (London: T. & W. Boone, 1838). Details
  • Mitchell, T. L., Journal of an expedition into the interior of tropical Australia, in search of a route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria Tropical Australia (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1848), 437 pp. Details
  • Mitchell, T. L., Australian geography, with the shores of the Pacific and those of the Indian Ocean: designed for the use of schools in New South Wales (Sydney: J. Moore, 1850), 268 pp. Details
  • Philbey, Glennis, Unmarked Lands: the Exploration of Unmarked Lands of Australia, 1830-1850, by Henry Stuart Russell, Ludwig Leichhardt, Sir Thomas Mitchell ([s. l.]: T. E. C. Print, 2006), 101 pp. Details
  • Victorian Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands, The Major Mitchell Trail: exploring Australia Felix (East Melbourne: National Parks and Wildlife Division, 1990), 127 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Andrews, Alan E.J., 'Sir Thomas Livingston Mitchell, 1792-1855' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Details
  • Baker, D. W. A., 'Mitchell, Sir Thomas Livingstone (1792-1855), surveyor-general' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 2: 1788 - 1850 I-Z, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), pp. 238-242. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020206b.htm. Details
  • Oldroyd, D., 'In the Footsteps of Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (1792-1855): Soldier, Surveyor, Explorer, Geologist, and Probably the First Person to Compile Geological Maps in Australia' in Four Centuries of Geological Travel: the Search for Knowledge on Foot, Bicycle, Sledge and Camel, Wyse-Jackson, P. N., ed. (London: Geological Society, 2007), pp. 343-373. Details

Edited Books

  • Andrews, Alan E. J. ed., Stapylton with Major Mitchell's Australia Felix expedition, 1836, largely from the journal of Granville William Chetwynd Stapylton (Hobart: Blubber Head Press, 1986), 297 pp. Details

Journal Articles

  • Archbold, Neil, 'Marjor T.L. Mitchell and Australian Vertebrate Palaeontology', Bulletin of the Fossil Collectors' Association of Australasia, 30 (1990), 33-37. Details
  • Baker, D. W. A., 'Thomas Mitchell as Explorer', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 80 (1-2) (1994), 24-45. Details
  • Daley, Charles, 'Major T.L. Mitchell. Explorer and Naturalist', The Victorian naturalist, 53 (October) (1936), 113-119. Details
  • Dunkley, J., 'The 1830 cave diaries of Thomas Livingston Mitchell', Helictite, 42 (2016), 21-37. Details
  • Dunkley, John, 'John Henderson, Thomas Mitchell and the First Publications on Cave Science in Australia ', Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 142 (2009), 5-15. Details
  • Flakelar, Danielle Carney; and O'Gorman, Emily, 'Wayilwan women caring for Country: dynamic knowledges, decolonising historical methodologies, and colonial explorer journals', Journal of Australian studies, 47 (1) (2023), 160-80, https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2022.2153378. Details
  • Forsyth, Ron, 'The bomerang (boomerang) propellor and Sir Thomas Mitchell', Maritime Heritage Association journal, 34 (1) (2020), 6-8. Details
  • Heckenberg, Kerry, 'Thomas Mitchell and the Wellington Caves: the Relationship among Science, Religion and Aesthetics in Early-Nineteenth-Century Australia', Victorian Literature and Culture, 33 (2005), 203-218. Details
  • Holland, Julian, 'Thomas Mitchell and the Origins of Australian Vertebrate Palaeontology', Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 125 (1992), 103-106. Details
  • O'Connor, Maura, 'Re-assembling Mitchell's terrestrial sextant', National Library of Australia Gateways, 47 (October 2000) (2000), 22. Details
  • Powell, J. M., 'Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, 1792-1855', Geographers: Bibliographical Studies, 5 (1981), 83-87. Details

Resources

Resource Sections

Theses

  • Couch, B. V., 'The Administration of Thomas Mitchell 1826-37', MA thesis, University of Sydney, 1963. Details

See also

  • Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Technology in Australia 1788-1988, Online edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/index_m.html. Details
  • Armstrong, John ed., Shaping the Hunter: a story of engineers, and the engineering contribution to the development of the present shape of the Hunter Region, its river, cities, industries and transport arteries (Newcastle, New South Wales: Institution of Engineers, Newcastle Division, 1983), 192 pp, https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2021-09/Shaping-the-Hunter_0.pdf. Pages 58 - 64. Details
  • Donovan, Val, 'Exploration and settlement: conflict in Queensland - an overview', Queensland History Journal, 23 (9) (2018), 581-92. Details
  • Engineers Australia ed., Wonders never cease: 100 Australian engineering achievements (Barton, Australian Capital Territory: Institution of Engineers, Australia, 2019), 236 pp. p.46. Details
  • Jones, Ross L, 'Place' 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), pp. 3-5, https://www.mup.com.au/books/dhoombak-goobgoowana-paperback-softback. 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
  • Minard, Pete, 'Making the "marsupial lion": bunyips, networked colonial knowledge production between 1830-59 and the description of Thylacoleo carnifex', Historical Records of Australian Science, 29 (2) (2018), 91-102. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR18003. Details
  • Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). 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

McCarthy, G.J.

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 13 February 2018

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