John Carne Bidwill

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John Carne Bidwill (1815 – 16 March 1853[1]) was an English botanist who documented plant life in New Zealand. He is attributed with the discovery of several Australian plant species.[2]

Contents

[edit] Life in England

Bidwill was born at St. Thomas, Exeter, England, the eldest son of Joseph Green Bidwill, a merchant of Exeter and Charlotte, née Carne[3]. He was educated for a commercial life but developed an interest in science, and botany in particular. He sailed to Canada in April 1832 at 17 years of age, returning in November 1834.

[edit] Migration

In September 1838 Bidwill arrived in Sydney, Australia, and while waiting for the survey of land that he had been allotted, he joined a commercial firm. He was sent in a schooner to New Zealand, arriving at the Bay of Islands on 5 February 1839. Over the next two months he took a journey into the interior of the North Island collecting botanical and other scientific specimens. An account of this journey, Rambles in New Zealand, was published in London in 1841. He stated that "these rambles were abruptly put an end to by the increasing business of the mercantile firm at Sydney with which I am connected", but he returned to New Zealand in 1840 and spent some time at Port Nicholson and its neighbourhood. About the year 1842 he met Joseph Dalton Hooker who, in his Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania, mentions that Bidwill accompanied him "in my excursions round Port Jackson and impressed me deeply with the extent of his knowledge and fertile talents".

[edit] Public service

Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens, 2006
Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens, 2006

Bidwill returned to Sydney in 1844 and sent a year from February 1845 in Tahiti.[1] Bidwill became temporary government botanist on 1 September 1847 and inaugural Director of Sydney's botanic gardens. The gardens were established in 1816 and until that time been supervised by colonial botanists and superintendents. Bidwill was succeeded by the permanent Director Charles Moore, who arrived in Australia and took up his duties in January 1848.

Following his time as interim Director of the botanic gardens, Bidwill was appointed commissioner of crown lands and chairman of the bench of magistrates for the district of Wide Bay in what is now Queensland.

[edit] Plant discoveries

Araucaria bidwillii
Araucaria bidwillii

Bidwill brought a live specimen to London where it was studied and named Araucaria bidwillii after him by English botanist William Jackson Hooker in the 1843 London Journal of Botany[2][4] Bidwill also is credited with discovery of Agathis robusta (the Dammara or Queensland kauri pine) and the Nymphaea gigantea.

[edit] Death

In 1851, while marking out a new road to the Moreton Bay district, Bidwill became separated from his colleagues and was lost without food for eight days. He eventually succeeded in cutting a way through the scrub with a pocket hook, but never properly recovered from starvation, and died on 16 March 1853 at Tinana, at 38 years of age. [2]

[edit] Legacy

In addition to Araucaria bidwillii, scientific name for the Bunya Bunya tree, Bidwill is remembered in the name of the City of Blacktown suburb, Bidwill, New South Wales.[4][5] In Queensland, a parish and a creek also bear his name, in recognition of his term as Commissioner for Crown Lands, Wide Bay.[6][7]

The standard author abbreviation Bidwill is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.[8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b D. A. Herbert (1966). Bidwill, John Carne (1815 - 1853). Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1 pp 98-99. MUP. Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
  2. ^ a b c Serle,Percival (1949). Bidwill, John Carne (1815-1853). Dictionary of Australian Biography. Angus and Roberston. Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
  3. ^ Austin Graham Bagnall (1966). Bidwill, John Carne. An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
  4. ^ a b Nomenclatural Data Base retrieval. Missouri Botanical Garden. Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
  5. ^ Bidwill. Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. Retrieved on 2007-01-05.
  6. ^ Bidwill. Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  7. ^ Bidwill Creek. Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
  8. ^ Brummitt, R. K.; C. E. Powell (1992). Authors of Plant Names. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ISBN 1-84246-085-4. 


Additional sources listed by the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

  • J. H. Maiden, 'Records of Australian Botanists: Bidwell, John Carne (1815-1853)', Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol 42, 1908, pp 85-93; W. W. Froggatt, 'The Curators and Botanists of the Botanic Gardens, Sydney', Journal and Proceedings (Royal Australian Historical Society), vol 18, part 3, 1932, pp 101-133.
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