Person

Rodway, Leonard (1853 - 1936)

CMG

Born
5 October 1853
Torquay, Devon, England
Died
9 March 1936
Kingston, Tasmania, Australia
Occupation
Botanist and Dentist

Summary

Leonard Rodway was a dentist who arrives in Tasmania in 1880 and for over 30 years was in private practice in Hobart and honorary dental surgeon at the Hobart General Hospital. He is better know, however, as the principal authority on the Tasmanian flora. Between 1896 and 1932 he was Honorary Government Botanist to the Tasmanian Government. He published extensively on the Tasmanian flora, including ferns, fungi and bryophytes, in the Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania . His landmark book The Tasmanian flora was issued in 1903. He collected widely across Tasmania, his specimens now largely being in the Tasmanian Herbarium. Rodway was involved in a number of Tasmanian Government agencies. For many years he was a Trustee of the Tasmanian Museum and Botanic Gardens. He also served on the Scenery Preservation Board and the National Park Board. Rodway was a central figure in the scientific community of Tasmania. He was a founding Member of the Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club, serving two terms as President and becoming an Honorary Life Member in 1927. Also in 1927 he received the Royal Society of Tasmania Medal in recognition of his botanical research.

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Details

Chronology

1878
Education - Licentiate, Royal College of Surgeons, London
1880
Life event - Settled in Tasmania
1884 - 1923
Career position - Practiced as dentist in Hobart, Tasmania
1884 - 1936
Award - Fellow, Royal Society of Tasmania
1890 - 1922
Career position - Honorary dental surgeon, Hobart General Hospital
1893
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus perriniana F.Muell. ex Rodway
1896 - 1932
Career position - Honorary Government Botanist, Tasmanian Government
1904 - 1927
Career position - Foundation Member, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club
1907 - 1910
Career position - President, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club
1910 - 1912
Career position - Vice-President, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club
1911 - 1928
Career position - Member, Tasmanian Museum and Botanic Gardens Trust
1912
Taxonomy event - Honoured with Eucalyptus rodwayi R.T.Baker & H.G.Sm.
1912 - 1922
Career position - Member of Committee, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club
1916 - 1920
Career position - Associate member, State Committee Tasmania, Advisory Council of Science and Industry
1916 - 1932
Career position - Member, Scenery Preservation Board, Tasmania
1917
Award - Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG)
1917 - 1932
Career position - Member, National Park Board, Tasmania
1918
Award - Clarke Medal, Royal Society of New South Wales
1920 - 1926
Career position - Ex officio member, Provisional General Advisory Council, Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry
1922 - 1924
Career position - President, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club
1923 - 1929
Career position - Lecturer, University of Tasmania
1924
Career position - President, Section M (Botany), Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science
1924 - 1929
Career position - Member of Committee, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club
1927
Award - Royal Society of Tasmania Medal
1927 - 1936
Award - Honorary Life Member, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club
1928 - 1932
Career position - Honorary Curator, Tasmanian Museum Herbarium
1929 - 1930
Career position - Vice-President, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club
1931
Career position - Member of Committee, Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club

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

National Herbarium, Melbourne

  • Leonard Rodway - Records, 1891 - 1894, MSS M17; National Herbarium, Melbourne. Details

Royal Society of Tasmania

  • Leonard Rodway - Records, 1896 - 1907, Ms 22; Royal Society of Tasmania. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Books

  • Rodway, L., Grasses and their identification (Hobart: Council of Agriculture, 1908), 32 pp. Details
  • Rodway, Leonard, Ferns of Tasmania (Hobart: Tasmanian Field Naturalists’ Club, 1905), 16 pp. Details
  • Rodway, Leonard, The Tasmanian flora (Hobart: Government Printer, 1908), 320 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Ellias, Ann, 'Rodway, Leonard (1853-1936), botanist and dentist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 11: 1891 - 1939 Nes-Smi, Geoffrey Serle, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988), pp. 436-437. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110443b.htm. Details
  • Phillips, Gael E.; and Pearn, John H., '"Oral history" - memorials to three pioneer Australian dentists' in "Outpost medicine": Australasian studies on the history of medicine: Third National Conference of the Australian Society of the History of Medicine, Hobart, February 1993, Atkins, Susanne, Kirkby, Kenneth, Thomson, Philip and Pearn, John, eds (Hobart: University of Tasmania and the Australian Society of the History of Medicine, 1994), pp. 87-106. Details

Journal Articles

  • Anon, 'Leonard Rodway, late Tasmanian Government Botanist', Australasian herbarium news, 6 (1950), 1-5. Details
  • Anon, 'Leonard Rodway, late Tasmanian Government Botanist [part 2]', Australasian herbarium news, 7 (1951), 3-8. Details
  • Rodway, L., 'Tasmanian fungi', Papers and Proceedings and Report of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1897 (1898), 129-44. Details

Resources

See also

  • "Outpost medicine": Australasian studies on the history of medicine: Third National Conference of the Australian Society of the History of Medicine, Hobart, February 1993 edited by Atkins, Susanne, Kirkby, Kenneth, Thomson, Philip and Pearn, John (Hobart: University of Tasmania and the Australian Society of the History of Medicine, 1994), 412 pp. Details
  • Fagg, Murray, 'Rodway, Leonard (1853 - 1936)', Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators, Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), 2010, https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/rodway-leonard.html. Details
  • Fenton, Janet, A century afield: a history of the Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club (Hobart, Tasmania: Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club, 2004), 168 pp. Details
  • 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
  • Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details

Gavan McCarthy [P004098] and Helen Cohn

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 21 January 2025

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