Hedley, Charles (1862 - 1926)

Summary

Charles Hedley was a self-taught naturalist with a keen interest in shells and coral reefs. Originally migrating first to New Zealand and then to Australia to help relieve his chronic asthma, he started oyster farming in Morton Bay, and later set up an orchard on Boyne Island. After injuring his arm, Hedley gave up his farming career and joined the Queensland Museum as a volunteer (1888). Within a year he was appointed to the Museum's staff. He joined the Australian Museum in Sydney in 1891 as a scientific assistant, later becoming Conchologist and ultimately, from 1921 to 1924, Principal Keeper of the Collections. In 1896 Hedley was the Australian Museum's representative on the Royal Society's expedition to the atoll of Funafuti, his collections from the expedition being deposited in the Museum. On resigning from the Museum in 1924 he became Scientific Director of the Great Barrier Reef Committee. Hedley was probably the first Australian to study the molluscs rather than the shells they lived in. His more than 230 papers were mostly concerned with molluscan taxonomy, where he published descriptions of 53 new genera and more than 900 new species, but he also wrote widely on ethnography, zoogeography, reef formation and geology. A feature of his work was his excellent illustrations and detailed notes he recorded on the specimens he collected. His personal library of molluscan literature was presented to the Australian Museum by his widow.

Hedley's Line was named for his recognition of the faunistic break at the Tonga Trench.

Details

Chronology

1881

Life event - Migrated to New Zealand

1882

Life event - Migrated to Australia (Queensland)

1888 -

Career event - Original [founding] member, Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science

1888 - 1891

Career position - Assistant curator of molluscs, Queensland Museum in Brisbane

1889 - 1926

Award - Fellow, Linnean Society, London

1890

Career position - Collecting expedition to Papua

1891 - 1896

Career position - Scientific Assistant, Australian Museum in Sydney

1896

Career position - Royal Society of London expedition to Funafuti Atoll in the Ellice Islands

1896 - 1907

Career position - Conchologist, Australian Museum

1897

Career position - Collection expedition to New Caledonia

1897 - 1924

Career position - Member of Council, Linnean Society of New South Wales

1908 - 1920

Career position - Assistant Curator, Australian Museum

1909

Career position - President, Section D (Biology), Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science

1909 - 1911

Career position - President, Linnean Society of New South Wales

1910 - 1911

Career position - President, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales

1914

Career position - President, Royal Society of New South Wales

1916

Award - David Syme Research Prize, University of Melbourne

1919 -

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

1921 - 1924

Career position - Principal Keeper of Collections, Australian Museum

1923 -

Career position - Vice-President, Malacological Society of London

1924

Career position - Scientific Director of the Great Barrier Reef Committee

1925

Award - Clarke Medal, Royal Society of New South Wales

Related entries

Archival resources

Australian Museum

• Charles Hedley - Records, 1895 - 1919, Series 29; Australian Museum. Details
• Charles Hedley - Records, Series 71; Australian Museum. Details

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

• Baldwin Spencer - Records, 1880 - 1929, ML MSS 29; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

Published resources

Books

• Hedley, C., Mollusca (Sydney: Government Printer, 1916), 89 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Fairfax, Denis, 'Hedley, Charles (1862-1926), naturalist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 9: 1891 - 1939 Gil-Las, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983), pp. 252-253. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090259b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

• '[Obituary: Charles Hedley]', Australian Zoologist, 4 (5) (1926), 289-290. Details
• Basedow, H. & Hedley, C., 'South Australian nudibranchs, and an enumeration of the known Australian species', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 29:134–160, 29 (1905), 134-60. Details
• C. A. [ie Charles Anderson], 'Charles Hedley, 1862-1926 (Memorial series, no. 5)', Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 61 (3/4) (1936), 209-220. Details
• Hedley, C., 'A list of the land snails recorded from Queensland', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 5 (1888), 45-70. Details
• Hedley, Charles, 'The Australian Journal of Dr. W. Stimpson, Zoologist. With an Introduction by Charles Hedley', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, xlviii (1914), 140-151. Details
• Iredale, T., 'Charles Hedley's Papers Indexed', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (1956), 118-139. Details
• Iredale, T., 'Charles Hedley', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, 88 (1967), 26-31. Details
• Rodgers, K. A.; and Cantrell, Carol, 'Charles Hedley and the 1896 Royal Society expedition to Funafuti', Archives of Natural History, 15 (3) (1988), 269-280. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/anh.1988.15.3.269. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q2959332. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/34190907. Details
• 'Hedley, Charles (1862-1926)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-519725. Details
• Rice, Tom, 'Hedley, Charles (1862 - 1926)', Shellers from the past and the present, Conchology Inc., Mactan Island, Philippines, 2023, https://www.conchology.be/?t=9001&id=20530. Details

See also

• Basedow, Herbert, Narrative of an expedition of exploration in north-western Australia (Adelaide: W.K. Thomas & Co., Printers, 1918), 295 pp. Details
• Beechey, D. L., 'Sydney's Molluscs: from Gentlemen to Malacologists' in The Natural History of Sydney, Lunney, Daniel, Hutchings, Pat A. and Hochuli, Dieter, eds (Mosman, N.S.W.: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, 2010), pp. 107-24. Details
• Prince, J. H., The first one hundred years of the Royal Zoological Society of N.S.W. 1879 - 1979 (Sydney: Royal Zoolgical Society of New South Wales, 1979), 81 pp. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details
• Hedley, Charles (England-Australia 1862-1926, Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches, http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/chronob/HEDL1862.htm. Details