Person
Cowley, Ebenezer (1849 - 1899)
- Born
- 18 April 1849
Fairford, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom - Died
- 9 February 1899
Atherton Tableland, Queensland, Australia - Occupation
- Horticulturist and Plant collector
Summary
Ebenezer Cowley was a significant collector of botanical specimens in northern Queensland and Papua New Guinea between 1890 and 1898. After working as a horticulturist in South Africa and Fiji in the 1870s, he came to Queensland in 1881 to manage the Victoria sugar plantation near Ingham for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. As Overseer of the Queensland Government's Kamerunga State Nursery near Cairns he was instrumental in trialling and experimenting with tropical crops such as paw paw, coffee and coconut. Cowley published regularly on horticultural matters in regional newspapers and in the Queensland Agricultural Journal. He collections were sent to Queensland Government Botanist Frederick Bailey who described a substantial number of new species from this material. Cowley's specimens are largely in the Queensland Herbarium
Details
Chronology
- 1881
- Life event - Migrated to Queensland
- 1889 - 1899
- Career position - Overseer, Kamerunga State Nursery
Related entries
Published resources
Journal Articles
- Dowe, John Leslie, 'The botanical collections of Ebenezer Cowley', Austrobaileya, 9 (2) (2014), 263-78. Details
Resources
- 'Cowley, Ebenezer (18490418-18990209)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1772738. Details
Helen Cohn
Last modified: 11 January 2022