Alexander, Wilfred Backhouse (1885 - 1965)

Summary

Wilfred Alexander was in Western Australia for only a few years but made significant contributions In the state's scientific circles in that period. In 1912 he was on board F.I.S. Endeavour off the coast of Western Australia as a collector for the Western Australian Museum. The following year he visited the Abrolhos Islands with William Dakin on the first Percy Sladen Trust Expedition. Alexander was Director of the Museum from 1915 to 1920, at a time when economic stringencies affected what the Museum could accomplish. For a large part of this time he was seconded to the Advisory Council of Science and Industry in Melbourne. He was an active member of the Royal Society of Western Australia, serving as Honorary Secretary. In Melbourne he became immersed in the activities of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union. Between 1920 and 1925 Alexander was biologist (and later Officer-in-Charge) at the Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board in Queensland. He left Australia in 1925 having laid a solid foundation for dealing with the rampant weed that was prickly pear. His subsequent career in the United Kingdon was largely spent with ornithologial organisations..

Details

Chronology

1909

Education - Bachelor of Arts (BA), King's College Cambridge, UK

1910 - 1911

Career position - Assistant Superintendent, Cambridge Museum of Zoology, United Kingdom

1910 - 1911

Career position - Assistant Demonstrator in Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, University of Cambridge

1911

Career position - Assistant Naturalist, Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, United Kingdom

c. 1911

Education - Master of Arts (MA), King's College Cambridge

1912

Life event - Moved to Western Australia

November 1913

Career position - Collector for the Western Australian Museum, Percy Sladen Trust Expedition to the Abrolhos Islands

1914

Career position - Co-Editor, Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia

1914 - 1916

Career position - Honorary Secretary, Royal Society of Western Australia

1915 - 1920

Career position - Keeper of Biology, Western Australian Museum

1916 - 1919

Career position - Science Abstractor (on secondment), Advisory Council of Scientific and Industry

1918 - ?

Career position - Member, Checklist Committee, Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union

1920 - 1924

Career position - Biologist, Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board, Brisbane

1921

Career position - Corresponding Fellow, American Ornithologists' Union

1923 - 1925

Career position - Vice-President, Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union

1924 - 1925

Career position - Editor, The Emu

1925

Career position - Officer-in-Charge, Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board, Brisbane

1926

Career position - Visiting scientist (preparing Birds of the ocean (1928), American Museum of Natural History

1929 - 1930

Career position - Superintendent, Tees Estuary Survey, United Kingdom

1930 - 1945

Career position - Director, Oxford Bird Census (later Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology), United Kingdom

1939 - 1965

Career position - Fellow, Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union

1945 - 1955

Career position - Librarian, Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, United Kingdom

1947

Award - Alexander Library in the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornothology named in his honour

1955

Award - Tucker Medal, British Trust for Ornithology

1959

Award - Union Medal, British Ornithologists' Union

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

• Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Western Australian Museum

• Wilfred Backhouse Alexander - Records, 1911 - 1920, D.A2/76; Western Australian Museum. Details

Published resources

Books

• Alexander, W. B., The prickly pear in Australia (Melbourne: Executive Committee of the Advisory Council of Science and Industry, 1919), 48 pp. Details
• Alexander, W. B., Natural enemies of prickly pear and their introduction into Australia (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1925), 80 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Adams, J. K., 'Obituary: Wilfred Backhouse Alexander, 1885 - 1965', Ibis, 108 (2) (1966), 188-9, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1474-919x.1966.tb7275.x. Details
• Alexander, W. B., 'Obituary: Mr. Richard Helms', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 49 (1914). Details
• Alexander, W. B., 'History of Zoology in Western Australia. Part II. 1791-1829', Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 1 (1914), 83-149. Details
• Alexander, W. B., 'The history of zoology in Western Australia, part 1: discoveries in the 17th century', Journal of the Natural History and Science Society of Western Australia, 5 (1915), 49-64. Details
• Alexander, W. B., 'The history of zoology in Western Australia, part 3: 1829 - 1840', Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 3 (1918), 37-69. Details
• Alexander, W. B., 'Birds of the Swan River district', Emu, 20 (3) (1921), 149-68, https://doi.org/10.1071/MU920149. Details
• Alexander, W. B., 'The vertebrate fauna of Houtman's Abroholos (Abrolhos Islands), Western Australia', Journal of the Linnean Society, London: zoology 34:457-86, 34 (1922), 457-86, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.1922.tb01841.x. Details
• D. L. S. [ie Serventy, D. L.], 'W. B. Alexander: Obituary', Western Australian Naturalist, 10 (6) (1967), 139-148. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q3568177. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/70037930. Details
• 'Alexander, Wilfred Backhouse (18850204-19651208)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1476342. Details

See also

• Currie, George; Graham, John, The Origins of CSIRO: Science and the Commonwealth Government, 1901-1926 (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1966), 203 pp, https://ebooks.publish.csiro.au/content/origins-csiro. pages 74. Details
• Fagg, Murray, 'Alexander, Wilfred Backhouse (1885 - 1965)', Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators, Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), 2010, https://anbg.gov.au/biography/alexander-wilfred-backhouse.html. Details
• Johnstone, R. E., 'A history of ornithology at the Western Australian Museum' in Contributions to the History of Australasian Ornithology, Davis, William E.; Recher, Harry E.; Boles, Walter E.; and Jackson, Jerome A., eds (Cambridge, Mass.: Nuttall Ornithological Club, 2008), pp. 165-98. Details
• Robin, Libby, The Flight of the Emu: a Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901-2001 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001), 492 pp. Details