Ewart, Alfred James (1872 - 1937)

Summary

Alfred Ewart was the first Professor of Botany, University of Melbourne 1906-1937 and until February 1921 was also the Victorian Government Botanist. Although trained in England, he published widely on Australian flora and travelled extensively throughout the country. President of the Royal Society of Victoria 1920-1921.

Details

Chronology

1894 -

Award - 1851 Exhibition Science Research Scholarship

1898 - 1937

Career position - Fellow, Linnean Society, London

1900

Publication - Book: First Stage Botany

1900 - 1906

Career event - Translated W. Pfeffer's three volume publication The Physiology of Plants

1902

Publication - Textbook: The new matriculation botany, later published as Ewart's Elementary Botany

1903

Publication - Book: On the Physics and Physiology of Protoplasmic Streaming in Plants,

1906 - 1921

Career position - Victorian Government Botanist

1906 - 1937

Career position - Chair of Botany, University of Melbourne

1908 - 1937

Career position - Chairman, Forestry Examination Board, Victoria

1909

Publication - Book: The weeds, poison plants, and naturalized aliens of Victoria

1909 - 1910

Career position - President, Field Naturalists Club of Victoria

1910

Taxonomy event - Ewartia named by G. Beauverd in Ewart's honour

1914

Career position - Local Secretary for Melbourne, Section K (Botany), British Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting

1917

Publication - Book: The flora of the Northern Territory, co-authored with Olive B. Davies

1919

Taxonomy event - J.H. Maiden named Eucalyptus ewartiana Maiden (1919) in Ewart's honour

1921 - c. 1927

Career position - Foundation Councillor (Botany), Australian National Research Council

1925

Publication - Book: Handbook of forest trees for Victorian foresters

1926

Career position - President, Section M (Botany), Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science

1926

Taxonomy event - Described Eucalyptus gillenii Ewart & Kerr (1926) (Blakely states = Eucalyptus morrisii R. T. Bak

1927

Career event - Elected Member (Botany and Forestry), Australian National Research Council

1930

Publication - Book: Flora of Victoria

Related entries

Archival resources

Private hands (Chambers, T.C.)

• Alfred James Ewart - Records, 1872 - 1937; Private hands (Chambers, T.C.). 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

• Ewart, A., Recording census of the Victorian flora (Melbourne: Victorian Department of Agriculture, 1908), 98 pp. Details
• Gillbank, Linden, From System Garden to Scientific Research: The University of Melbourne's School of Botany under its First Two Professors (1906-1973) (Parkville, Vic.: School of Botany, University of Melbourne, 2010), 38 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Chambers, T. C., 'Ewart, Alfred James (1872-1937), botanist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 8: 1891 - 1939 Cl-Gib, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1981), pp. 448-450. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ewart-alfred-james-6124. Details
• Farley, Simon, 'Flora and failure: A history of plants and people on the Parkville campus' 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. 6-21, https://www.mup.com.au/books/dhoombak-goobgoowana-paperback-softback. Details

Journal Articles

• Carey, Jane, 'No place for a woman?: Intersections of class, modernity and colonialism in the gendering of Australian Science, 1885-1940', Lilith: A Feminist History Journal, 10 (2001), 153-172, https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/informit.497703739503377. Details
• Cohn, Helen M., 'Watch Dog Over the Herbarium: Alfred Ewart, Victorian Government Botanist, 1906-1921', Historical Records of Australian Science, 16 (2) (2005), 139-167. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR05009. Details
• Gillbank, Linden, 'The University of Melbourne Herbarium, from McCoy to MELU: a broken paper-trail', University of Melbourne Collections, 1 (2007), 20-8. Details
• Stiles, W., 'Alfred James Ewart 1872 - 1937', Obituary notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, 2 (7) (1939), 465-9. Details
• Stiles, W., 'Alfred James Ewart 1872-1937', Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1939 (1939), 465-9. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q614703. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/60591740. Details
• 'Ewart, Alfred J (1872-1937)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-632613. 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
• Kelly, Farley, 'Learning and Teaching Science: Women Making Careers 1890-1920' in On the Edge of Discovery: Australian Women in Science, Farley Kelly, ed. (Melbourne: Text Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 35-75. 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, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40808735. Details
• Willis, J. H., Botanical Pioneers in Victoria, vol. 66 ([Melbourne]: [Brown Prior Anderson], 1949), 19 pp. Details