Person

McFarlane, Samuel (1837 - 1911)

Born
18 February 1837
Johnstone, near Glasgow, United Kingdom
Died
27 January 1911
Southport, Lancashire, United Kingdom
Occupation
Ethnologist, Minister of religion, Missionary and Natural history collector
Alternative Names
  • MacFarlane, Samuel

Summary

Samuel McFarlane was a missionary with the London Missionary Society who spent ten years in the Loyalty Island before being withdrawn in 1869 because of diplomatic difficulties between France and Britain. He visited Australia 1867-1868 as a mission delegate. Between 1874 and 1886 he was with the New Guinea mission. Based at Cape York and later Murray Island in the Torres Strait, McFarlane made numerous visit to New Guinea, establishing 12 mission stations, and becoming adept in several indigenous languages. He made a number of explorations in New Guinea, sometimes in company with Luigi D'Albertis, Andrew Goldie, James Chalmers and Carl Hartmann. McFarlane was a prolific collector of ethnographic and natural history specimens from Torres Strait and New Guinea. Many of these specimens were sold and are now in European museums. Many of his botanical specimens he sent to Ferdinand von Mueller in Melbourne.

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Details

Chronology

1858
Life event - Ordained with the London Missionary Society
1859 - 1869
Career position - Missionary in the Loyalty Islands
1874 - 1886
Career position - Missionary with New Guinea Mission
1887
Award - Honorary doctorate, University of St Andrews, Scotland
1887
Life event - Retired from the New Guinea Mission
1887 - 1894
Career position - Officer with the London Missionary Society
1894
Life event - Retired

Related Corporate Bodies

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Published resources

Book Sections

Journal Articles

  • Philip, Jude, 'KRAR: nineteenth century turtle-shell masks from Mabuyag collected by Samuel McFarlane', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Culture, 8 (1) (2015), 99-125. Details

See also

  • Van Steenis-Kruseman, M. J., Malaysian plant collectors and collections: being a cyclopaedia of botanical exploration in Malaysia and a guide to the concerned literature up to the year 1950 (Djakarta: Noordhoff-Kolff NV, 1950), clii, 639 pp. Details

Helen Cohn

Created: 28 November 2017, Last modified: 7 April 2022

EOAS ID: biogs/P005911b.htm

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