For National Science Week 2015, let’s look back at 5 Queensland scientists who you might not have heard of.

5. Botantist – Frederick Manson Bailey (1827-1915)

Botanist Frederick Manson Bailey. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Neg 160401

(The following extract is taken from E. N. Marks, ‘Bailey, Frederick Manson (1827–1915)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1969, accessed online 20 August 2015)

Frederick Manson Bailey, colonial botanist, was born on 8 March 1827 at Hackney, London, the second son of John Bailey (1800-1864), an experienced horticulturist, and his wife, née Manson. His father secured free passages for himself and his family; they arrived at Adelaide in the Buckinghamshire in March 1839 with a large collection of vines and fruit trees. Soon afterwards John Bailey cancelled his agreement to lease a farm from the South Australian Co., and held appointment as colonial botanist in 1839-41.

Frederick had attended the foundation school of the Independent Church at Hackney, London, but thereafter as an avid reader was self-taught. In 1861 Bailey moved to Brisbane where he opened a seed store and also collected plants to sell to overseas institutions. In 1875 when the Queensland government appointed a board to inquire into the causes of diseases affecting livestock and plants, Bailey was appointed botanist and travelled widely investigating pastures and plants reputed to be poisonous to livestock.

Bailey was acting curator of the Queensland Museum in 1880-82 and in 1881 was appointed colonial botanist, a position he held until his death. He was tireless and happily absorbed in his work and when his appointment was suspended in the depression of the 1890s he continued to attend his office, saying the work must proceed whether or not he was paid for it. In 1902 he told the authorities that he would go on working as far as he could without pay, but if they wished to retire him they would have to carry him into the street. Public outcry caused his early reinstatement in the first instance and his retention on half salary in the second. Of his many collecting trips throughout Queensland the most notable was the Bellenden-Ker expedition to north Queensland in 1889. He sent lower plants (except ferns) to specialists and made many of his own descriptions in the field. His extensive systematic work culminated in publication in six parts of The Queensland Flora (1899-1902) with a General Index (1905) and the Comprehensive Catalogue of Queensland Plants (1912). Most of his numerous papers appeared in the Department of Agriculture Bulletin; his interests included economic plants and timbers, plants used in medicine and by the Aboriginals, and practical horticulture.

An honorary member of the Queensland Philosophical Society in 1880-83, Bailey was a foundation member of its successor, the Royal Society of Queensland, on whose council he served for thirteen years, being president in 1890. He was chairman of the field naturalists’ section of this society in 1886-95 and never missed a meeting or excursion. An ardent collector himself, he was an inspiring leader, encouraging with patient help anyone interested in botany; the group made important collections in south-east Queensland.  In 1911 he was president of the biology section of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. His name was given to more than fifty species of plants.

It was a fitting tribute to his stature both as citizen and scientist that he was invested with the C.M.G. at the inaugural celebration of the University of Queensland in 1911 by Sir William MacGregor, governor of Queensland and chancellor of the university. He died on 25 June 1915 at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.

State Library of Queensland have digitised volume 5 – Loranthaceae to Lemnaceae and volume 6 – Alismaceae to Filices of Bailey’s Queensland Flora, which can be perused online.

Image taken from ‘Queensland flora’ by Frederick Manson Bailey

Further reading: 

• The Bailey family and its place in the botanical history of Australia. Paper by C.T.White, Government Botantist, 1944
• Frederick Manson Bailey’s publications held by State Library of Queensland

4. Naturalist & Botanical artist – Estelle Thomson (1894-1953)

Estelle Thomson, ca.1918. University of Queensland collection. Image UQ:179673

(The following taken from ‘Thomson, Estelle (1894-1953)‘. Australian National Herbarium)

Estelle Thomson, naturalist and wildflower painter, was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1894, daughter of George Comrie-Smith, photographer and artist, and Ethel, nee Thomson. Both her parents were keen naturalists and Ethel later became an expert on Queensland birds. Estelle’s early love of nature was inspired by family visits to the Scottish Highlands and the Lakes District of Cumberland.

She was educated at Calder House School at Seascale, Cumberland, and later at a school of physical culture at Dartford, Kent. Estelle was a teacher of physical culture and eurhythmics before her marriage in Glasgow in 1917 to her second cousin, the Queensland surveying engineer Aubrey Frederick Thomson (formerly von Stieglitz), then serving with the Australian Army in Europe during the First World War.

In 1919, after the war, Estelle and Aubrey Thomson arrived in Brisbane, later to be followed by her parents. They settled on a farm, Wombo, at Eight Mile Plains south of Brisbane, where they raised poultry and small crops until forced to abandon the venture in 1923. The then unspoilt bush of Eight Mile Plains made a lasting impression on Estelle who was to spend the rest of her life awakening public appreciation of Australian wildflowers, while also raising her four children. An active member of the Queensland Naturalists’ Club from the 1920s, she contributed flowers, paintings and drawings to its annual wildflower shows, and was vice-president in 1929-30 and president in 1930-31. Estelle was also a member of the Arts and Crafts Society of Queensland, the Lyceum Club and the Brisbane Women’s Club.

Estelle Thomson is best remembered for her publications. Recognising the need for a popular guide to Queensland wildflowers, she produced Flowers of Our Bush, published in 1929 by the Read Press, Brisbane, and distributed for many years by Barker’s Bookstore. This ‘delightful little volume’ describing and illustrating coastal species, was intended as the first of a short series on Australian wildflowers, but no further volumes could be issued in the ensuing Depression years.

From 1929 to the 1930s Estelle ran a weekly ‘Wildflowers’ column in the Brisbane Courier, illustrated by her own line drawings. This was followed by her column ‘Nature’s Ways’ in the Telegraph, maintained until her health began to fail in about 1950. She also lectured at women’s clubs and schools, illustrating her lectures with delicately hand-coloured lantern slides, which are now held by the John Oxley Library, Brisbane.

During the 1940s Estelle Thomson gave a series of children’s talks on wildflowers on the ABC and produced a series of paintings of poisonous plants for the University of Queensland’s Medical School. A friend of the Queensland Government Botanist C.T. White, she deposited specimens in the Queensland Herbarium, including some collected on the Granite Belt and at Caloundra where she had a holiday house. Estelle Thomson died of heart disease in Brisbane on 6 September 1953.

State Library of Queensland have digitised Estelle Thomson’s hand-coloured lantern slides which can be viewed online.

‘Crotalaria’ taken from Estelle Thomson’s hand-painted glass slides. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

3. Meteorologist – Clement Lindley Wragge (1852–1922)

Clement Wragge ca. 1901. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Image 161210

(Extract taken from Paul D. Wilson, ‘Wragge, Clement Lindley (1852–1922)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 18 August 2015.)

Clement Lindley Wragge, meteorologist, was born on 18 September 1852 at Stourbridge, Worcestershire, England. Orphaned in early childhood, Wragge was educated at Uttoxeter Grammar School in Staffordshire and articled to a London solicitor. In 1876 he joined the South Australian surveyor-general’s department. Wragge studied meteorology and in 1878 returned to Britain where he established weather observation stations. He founded similar stations in South Australia and founded the Meteorological Society of Australasia in 1886. In January 1887 he was appointed meteorological observer in the Queensland post and telegraph department. Wragge expanded the observation network, issued forecasts, pioneered research into tropical revolving storms in the south-west Pacific, lectured extensively and built an observatory at his Taringa home. After advocating the creation of a national weather bureau he was bitterly disappointed in 1907 when H.A. Hunt was appointed head of the Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau. Wragge moved to Auckland, New Zealand, where he built an observatory. He revisited Queensland in 1913 but failed to win support for his proposed tropical cyclone research centre. He died following a stroke at Birkenhead, New Zealand on 10 December 1922.

State Library of Queensland holds a serial produced by Clement Wragge called ‘Wragge: a meteorological, geographical and popular scientific gazette for the people of the southern hemisphere‘ (v.1, no. 23- v. 1, no. 52 18 Dec. 1902 -9 July 1903). SLQ also holds Wragge’s Australasian almanac and weather guide for land and sea (1898 – 1902).

Further reading:

• ‘Inclement Wragge – Pioneer weather forecaster‘. John Oxley Library Blog

Cartoon of the meteorologist Clement Wragge. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Neg 69463

2. Biologist – Anna Frederika (Freda) Bage (1883–1970)

Freda Bage in academic dress 1949. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Image 191982

(Extract taken from Jacqueline Bell, ‘Bage, Anna Frederika (Freda) (1883–1970)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 20 August 2015).

Anna Frederika (Freda) Bage, was born on 11 April 1883 at St Kilda, Victoria, daughter of Edward Bage, wholesale chemist, and his wife Mary Charlotte, née Lange. Inspired by her father’s amateur scientific interests, she entered Janet Clarke Hall, University of Melbourne, in 1901, and after failing first year graduated B.Sc. in 1905 and M.Sc. with second-class honours in 1907. She then worked as a junior demonstrator in biology, sharing the MacBain Research Scholarship in 1907 and winning a Victorian government research scholarship in 1908. Next year she read two papers to the Royal Society of Victoria, then went to England on a King’s College, London, research scholarship; her work under A. Dendy in 1910-11 led to a fellowship of the Linnean Society. Returning to the University of Melbourne as senior demonstrator, she was appointed lecturer in charge of biology at the University of Queensland in 1913, and became first principal of The Women’s College within that university on 8 February 1914. As a biologist interested in fauna and flora she became president of the Field Naturalists’ Club in 1915 and was a foundation member of the Barrier Reef committee. She was a member of the university senate in 1923-50. ppointed O.B.E. in 1941, she retired in 1946 and the university conferred an honorary doctorate of laws on 26 April 1951. She died of cerebral arteriosclerosis in Brisbane on 23 October 1970.

Further reading:

• ‘Freda Bage took for granted a woman’s right to be heard. She shaped destiny of our women’s college‘. The Courier-Mail, 1 Oct 1949.

Students and principal of Women’s College, Brisbane, 1928. Freda Bage, principal of Women’s College, is seated in the centre of the front row. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Neg 204212

1. Paediatrician & Entomologist – Alfred Jefferis Turner (1861–1947)

Portrait of Doctor Alfred Jefferis Turner. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Neg 186792

(Extract taken from M. John Thearle, ‘Turner, Alfred Jefferis (1861–1947)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 18 August 2015)

Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner, paediatrician and entomologist, was born on October 3, 1861 in Canton, China. Turner graduated from the University College, London with first-class honours (M.B., M.R.C.S., 1884; M.D., 1896). He arrived in Australia in 1888. The following year, he became first resident surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children, Brisbane, and continued as its honorary visiting physician after he entered private practice in 1893. He qualified for the Cambridge Diploma in Public Health in 1901 and from 1904 was visiting medical officer to the Diamantina Hospital for Chronic Diseases. His clinical research and influence helped to reduce the number of children’s deaths in Queensland: he introduced the diphtheria anti-toxin (1895) and with J. L. Gibson, diagnosed hookworm-induced anaemia (1892) and lead poisoning (1897). He advocated breast-feeding of infants, health education for expectant and nursing mothers, and the establishment of antenatal clinics and played a pivotal role in combating the bubonic plague epidemic of 1900 and in making the notification of tuberculosis compulsory in 1904. He also established the first infant welfare clinic in Queensland in 1909. Turner became an outstanding figure in Queensland medicine, and because of his mild manner and love of children he became known as ‘Gentle Annie.’ Dr Turner died in Brisbane on the 29 December, 1947.

State Library of Queensland holds a sterling silver-mounted glass inkwell, which was presented to Dr Turner in 1898 by The Ladies Committee of the Sick Children’s Hospital.

Further reading:

• Thearle, M. John (Michael John) (1988). Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner, 1861-1947 : his contribution to medicine in Queensland, School of Medicine, The University of Queensland.

Doctor Alfred Jefferis Turner in the Bunya Mountains 1925. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Neg 172645