Tunney, John Thomas (1870 - 1929)

Summary

John Tunney was one of the most important early collectors for the Western Australian Museum. After working as a messenger for his local Kojonup Post Office, and on a construction gang erecting the overland telegraph between Albany and Eucla, he joined surveying parties in the south-west of Western Australia (for an English land company) and in the Coolgardie, Norseman and Ravensthorpe districts (for a mining company). At the invitation of the Director of the Museum, Bernard Woodward, Tunney began collecting in 1895 and continued for at least ten years. The Museum's taxidermist, Otto Lipfert, taught Tunney how to preserve specimens. Tunney's collecting ranged from southern Western Australia to the Kimberley district in the northwest, and as far as Arnhem Land, visiting placed determined by Woodward. In the early 1900s Tunney collected moths, butterflies and fleas for members of the Rothschild family at the Tring Museum in the United Kingdom. Many of Tunney's specimens were of species new to science. A number of these were named after him, particularly birds named by Gregory Mathews. Although having no appropriate training, Tunney also collected cultural material which formed the basis of the Museum's anthropological collections. In his later years he was a farmer in Kojonup.

Details

Tunney's date of birth is stated as 11 October 1870 on his birth certificate: a number of publications, including newspaper obituaries, put the date as 1871.

Related entries

Archival resources

Western Australian Museum

• John T. Tunney - Records, 1897 - 1910; Western Australian Museum. Details

Published resources

Books

• Whittell, H. M., The Literature of Australian Birds: a History and a Bibliography of Australian Ornithology (Perth: Patterson Brokensha, 1954), 140, 788 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Chadwick, Ross, '"Your Obedient Servant": the John Tunney Collection at the Western Australian Museum' in The Makers and Making of Indigenous Australian Museum Collections, Peterson, Nicolas, Allen, Lindy and Hamby, Louise, eds (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2008), pp. 255-77. Details

Journal Articles

• Hartert, E., 'List of birds collected in North-western Australia and Arnhem Land by Mr. J. Tunney', Novitates zoologicae: a journal of zoology in connection with the Tring Museum, 12 (1905), 194-242. Details
• Oldfield, Thomas, 'On a collection of mammals made by J. T. Tunney in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory of South Australia', Novitates zoologicae: a journal of zoology in connection with the Tring Museum, 11 (1904), 222-9, https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.26833. Details
• Paterson, Alistair; and Witcomb, Andrea, '"Nature's marvels": the value of collections extracted from colonial Western Australia', Journal of Australian studies, 45 (2) (2021), 197-220. Details
• Storr, G. M., 'J. T. Tunney's Itinerary in Northern Australia 1901-1903', Emu, 66 (1) (1966), 59-65. Details
• Whittell, H. M., 'Notes on field trips of J. T. Tunney', Emu, 38 (3) (1938), 322-6. https://doi.org/10.1071/MU938322. Details

Newspaper Articles

• 'John T. Tunney Dead - Great W.A. Naturalist - His Work For Museum', The Daily News (Perth) (1929), 1. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85145782. Details
• 'John T. Tunney - State's Naturalist and Explorer - Valued Citizen Dead', Albany Advertiser (1929), 4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70196574. Details
• 'The Late J. T. Tunney - A Well-Known Naturalist', Sunday Times (Perth) (1929), 11. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58417996. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6260630. Details
• 'Tunney, John Thomas (1871-1929)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1476089. 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