Person

Bedford, Robert (1874 - 1951)

Born
7 November 1874
Shropshire, England
Died
14 February 1951
Kyancutta, South Australia, Australia
Occupation
Museum director and Palaeontologist
Alternative Names
  • Buddicom, Robert Arthur (Former name)

Summary

Robert Bedford (formerly Robert Buddicom) was a keen palaeontologist who made considerable contributions to geology especially in the fields of fossil Archaeocyatha and meteorites. He had a varied career in the United Kingdom, including working as a museum curator, market gardener, a demonstrator and lecturer in a London hospital, and founder of the short-lived magazine, Life studies: the journal of our society. He migrated to Australia in 1915, changing his name to Robert Bedford, and settling in Kyancutta, South Australia. For a time he was occupied in farming, but also provided medical services, mined guano, and from 1922 ran a general store. He sent regular weather reports from Kyancutta to Adelaide, resulting in the recognition of Kyancutta as an official weather-station. Continuing his interest in palaeontology, he travelled through South Australia looking for fossils. Aboriginal relics were also among the material he collected. The Henbury meteorite craters in Central Australia were a focus in the 1930s. This caused some ructions with some members of the South Australian geological establishment who wanted a reserve declared to prevent just anyone from collecting specimens. In 1929 Buddicom (as Beford) opened the Kyancutta Museum to house his collections. From 1934 he published the Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum.

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Details

Chronology

1897
Education - Bachelor of Arts (BA), University of Oxford
1897 - 1898
Career position - Oxford Biological Scholar, Marine Biological Station, Naples, Italy
1899 - 1910
Award - Fellow, Geological Society of London
1900 - 1901
Career position - Curator, Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery
1902
Career position - Founder and Editor, Life studies: the journal of our society
1906 - 1914
Career position - Demonstrator and lecturer, London Hospital Medical College
1915
Life event - Migrated to Australia
1920
Career position - Founder, Adelaide Rationalist Society
1929
Career event - Opened the Kyancutta Museum and Library to house his palaeontological specimens
1931 - 1937
Career event - Examined meteorite craters, Henbury, Central Australia

Related Corporate Bodies

Archival resources

Barr Smith Library, Special Collections, The University of Adelaide

  • Robert Bedford - Records, 1930 - 1966, 92/B4113p; Barr Smith Library, Special Collections, The University of Adelaide. Details

Published resources

Books

  • Laube, Sylvia, Robert Bedford of Kyancutta (Norwood, S.A.: The Wednesday Press, 1990), 160 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Brett-Crowther, M. R., 'Buddicom, Robert Arthur (1874-1951), scientist and local entrepreneur' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 7: 1891 - 1939 A-Ch, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979), pp. 475-476. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070478b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

  • Bedford, R. and Bedford, J., 'Further notes on the Cyathospongia (Archaeocyathi) and other organisms from the Lower Cambrian of Beltana, South Australia', Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum, 3 (1936), 21-6. Details
  • Bedford, R. and Bedford, J., 'Further notes on Archaeos (Pleospongia) from the Lower Cambrian of South Australia', Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum, 4 (1937), 27-38. Details
  • Bedford, R. and Bedford, J., 'Anatomy and classification of the Pleospongia (Cyathospongia) from the Lower Cambrian of Beltana, South Australia', Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum, 3A (1937), 1-11. Details
  • Bedford, R. and Bedford, J., 'Development and classification of Archaeos (Pleospongia)', Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum, 6 (1939), 67082. Details
  • Bedford, R. and Bedford, W. R., 'New species of Archaeocyathinae and other organisms from the Lower Cambrian of Beltana, South Australia', Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum, 1 (1934), 1-7. Details
  • Bedford, R. and Bedford, W. R., 'Further notes on Archaeocyathi (Cyathospongia) and other organisms from the Lower Cambrian of Beltana, South Australia', Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum, 2 (1936), 9-20. Details
  • Brett-Crowther, M. R., 'Robert Buddicom: prophet and utopist', Shropshire Magazine (1974). Details
  • Cooper, B. J., 'Historical perspective: the Kyancutta Museum', Geological Survey of South Australia, quarterly notes, 103 (1987), 2-3. Details
  • Cooper, Barry J. and Jago, James B., 'Robert Bedford (1874 1951), the Kyancutta museum, and a unique contribution to international geology', Earth sciences history, 37 (2) (2018), 416-43. https://doi.org/10.17704/1944-6178-37.2.416. Details
  • Lowden, J., 'Robert Bedford and the Kyancutta Institute', Useful knowledge: the magazine of the Mechanics Institutes of Victoria, 44 (2017), 9-12. Details
  • Luscombe, Ned and Luscombe, Margaret, 'Robert Bedford and the Kyancutta Institute', Useful knowledge: the magazine of the Mechanics’ Institute of Victoria, 44 (2017), 9-12. Details
  • Sorokin, Michael, 'The delight that work alone can give: Robert "The Prof" Bedford provided medical services in South Australia for over 20 years, despite having no medical qualifications', Medical Journal of Australia, 193 (11/12) (2010), 718-9. Details

Resources

See also

  • Birch, W. D.; and Henry, D. A., 'The geology collections of Museum Victoria, Melbourne', Australian Journal of Mineralogy, 6 (2) (2000), 83-91. Details
  • Buhl, Svend and McColl, Don, Henbury craters and meteorites: their discovery, history and study (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG, 2015), 173 pp. Details

McCarthy, G.J. and Helen Cohn

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 5 December 2023

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