Person
Alexander, Wilfred Backhouse (1885 - 1965)
- Born
- 4 February 1885
Croydon, Surrey, England - Died
- 8 December 1965
Parkstone, Dorset, England - Occupation
- Ornithologist
Summary
Wilfred Alexander joined the staff of the Western Australian Museum in 1912 and was made Keeper of Biology in 1915. In 1920 he was appointed biologist to the Prickly Pear Board, Queensland and later Officer-in-Charge. He left Australia in 1925.
Details
Chronology
- 1909
- Education - Bachelor of Arts (BA), King's College Cambridge, UK
- 1910 - 1911
- Career position - Assistant Superintendent at Cambridge Museum of Zoology, UK
- 1910 - 1911
- Career position - Assistant Demonstrator in Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, University of Cambridge
- c. 1911
- Education - Master of Arts (MA), King's College Cambridge
- 1911
- Career position - Assistant Naturalist to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in England
- 1912 - 1913
- Career position - North Sea expedition assistant for the Western Australian Museum
- November 1913
- Career position - Percy Sladen Trust Expedition to the Abrolhos Islands
- 1915 - 1920
- Career position - Keeper of Biology at the Western Australian Museum
- 1916 - 1919
- Career position - Science Abstractor on secondment to the Advisory Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
- 1918 - ?
- Career position - Member of the Checklist Committee of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union
- 1920 - 1924
- Career position - Biologist with the Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board in Brisbane
- 1921
- Career position - Corresponding Fellow, American Ornithologists' Union
- 1924 - 1925
- Career position - Editor of The Emu journal
- 1926
- Career position - American Museum of Natural History
- 1928
- Career position - Birds of the Ocean - the first ornithological field guide, published in New York
- 1929 - 1930
- Career position - Superintendent of the Tees Estuary survey
- 1930 - 1945
- Career position - Director of the Oxford Bird Census (later Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology), UK
- 1939
- Career position - Fellow, Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union
- 1945 - 1955
- Career position - Librarian at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology
- 1947
- Award - Naming honour of the Alexander Library in the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornothology
- 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
- 'W. B. Alexander: Obituary', Western Australian Naturalist, 10 (6) (1967), 129-148. 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
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
- 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
McCarthy, G.J. & Rosanne Walker
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 26 March 2007
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