Shirley, John Francis (1849 - 1922)

Summary

John Shirley, the first Principal of the Teachers' training College, Brisbane, encouraged the study of nature in schools. His travels around Queensland as Inspector for the Department of Public Instruction provided him with many opportunities to pursue his interest in natural history. He also taught botany, physiology, and geology at the Pharmacy College and worked at the Queensland Museum. His special interests were lichens and Mollusca and over his career he collected and mounted 2500 plant specimens. Shirley was active in the Field Naturalists' Club of Queensland and the Royal Society of Queensland. His pioneering work The lichen flora of Queensland (1888 - 1980) was published in the Society's Proceedings. The Queensland Museum is the principal repository of his collections.

Details

Chronology

Education - Bachelor of Science (BSc), University of London

1870 - 1877

Career position - Teacher, Bishop Ryder's Boys' School, Birmingham, United Kingdom

1878

Life event - Arrived in Brisbane

1878

Career position - Head Teacher, Roma State School

1879 - 1908

Career position - District inspector west of Maryborough, Queensland Department of Public Instruction

1886

Career position - Foundation member, Field Naturalists' Section, Royal Society of Queensland

1886 - 1919

Career position - Member of Council, Royal Society of Queensland

1892 - 1893

Career position - President, Royal Society of Queensland

1895

Career position - General Secretary of the 1895 Meeting, Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science

1898

Career position - President, Section J (Mental Science and Education), Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science

1904

Career position - President, Section J (Mental Science and Education), Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science

1906 - 1915

Career position - Foundation Member, Field Naturalists' Club of Queensland

1908

Career position - President, Field Naturalists' Club of Queensland

1909 - 1914

Career position - Senior Inspector, Queensland Department of Public Instruction

1912

Education - Doctor of Science (DSc), University of Sydney

1912 - 1915

Career position - Honorary conchologist, Queensland Museum

1914

Career position - First Principal, Teachers' Training College, Brisbane

1914

Career position - President, Royal Society of Queensland

1915 - 1922

Award - Honorary Member, Field Naturalists' Club of Queensland

1920

Taxonomy event - Acacia shirleyi Maiden

1920 - 1921

Career position - Conchologist, Queensland Museum

1923

Taxonomy event - Honoured with Eucalyptus shirleyi Maiden

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

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

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• Collins, David, Chemistry in 19th Australia - Select Bibliography, An exhibition of the Encyclopedia circa 2005 with assistance from Ailie Smith and Gavan McCarthy., eScholarship Research Centre (original publisher), Melbourne, 2009, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/ciab/ciab_ALL.html. Details
• McCarthy, Gavan; Smith, Ailie; Moje, Christine; Rigby, Rebecca, The Study of Australian Eucalypts, eScholarship Research Centre, 2013, http://www.eoas.info/eucalypts/index.html. Details

Books

• Shirley, John, International catalogue of scientific literature: Queensland volume (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1899), 154 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Marks, E. N., 'Shirley, John (1849-1922), educationist and scientist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 11: 1891 - 1939 Nes-Smi, Geoffrey Serle, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988), pp. 598-599. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110613b.htm. Details

Conference Proceedings

• Report of the sixth meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science edited by Shirley, John (Brisbane: Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 1895), i-xxxiv, 1-875 pp, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/220614. Details

Journal Articles

• Chisholm, A. H.; and White, C. T., 'The late Dr Shirley', Queensland naturalist, 3 (1922), 87. Details
• East, John W., 'An early Australian bibliographer: John Shirley and the Queensland volume of the International catalogue of scientific literature', Australian academic and research libraries, 10 (1979), 73-9. Details
• Kantvilas, Gintaras, 'Re-examination of John Shirley's collection of Tasmanian lichens', Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 122 (2) (1988), 59-67. https://doi.org/10.26749/rstpp.122.2.59. Details
• Shirley, J., 'The lichen flora of Queensland, part I', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 5 (1888), 80-110. Details
• Shirley, J., 'The lichen flora of Queensland, part II-III', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 6 (1889-1890), 80-110, 129-45, 165-218. Details
• Shirley, J., 'A Fish-Poison of the Aborigines', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 11 (1895-1896), 88-90. Details
• Shirley, J., 'A Review of Recent Australian Conchology', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, xxvii (1915), 1-10. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q21516220. Details
• 'Shirley, John (1849-1922)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1464429. Details

See also

• Fagg, Murray, 'Shirley, John (1849 - 1922)', Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators, Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), 2010, https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/shirley-john-francis.html. Details
• Marks, Elizabeth N., 'A history of the Queensland Philosophical Society and the Royal Society of Queensland from 1859 to 1911', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 71 (1960), 17-42. http://www.royalsocietyqld.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/Elizabeth_Marks_History.pdf. Details
• Marks, Elizabeth N., 'Seventy-five years of natural history', Queensland naturalist, 24 (1/4) (1983), 6-28. Details