Australian Natural History Medallion
The Australian Natural History Medallion is awarded each year by the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) to the person judged to have made the most meritorious contribution to the understanding of Australian Natural History. The idea originated with J. K. Moir, a book collector and member of the Bread and Cheese Club. Moir wrote to the FNCV in 1939 suggesting that such a medallion should be awarded to a person who had performed, in his words, ‘a signal service’ to the protection of flora and fauna—‘a variation of the Nobel awards’. Nominations for the Medallion are made by field naturalist clubs and kindred bodies from all over Australia, each nomination being valid for a three-year period. The Medallion has usually been awarded annually since 1940. In that time, recipients have been honoured for their work in many fields of natural history studies, and have come from every state and territory in Australia. The list of Medallionists and the year of the award is as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Field Naturalists Club Of Victoria
The Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) is an Australian natural history and conservation organisation. It was founded in May 1880 by a group of nature enthusiasts that included Thomas Pennington Lucas. Sophie C. Ducker,Lucas, Arthur Henry Shakespeare (1853 - 1936), ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 10, MUP, 1986, pp 163-164. Retrieved 2009-09-19 Charles French and Dudley Best.Gary Presland (2016) ''Understanding our natural world: the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria 1880-2015.'' Melbourne: Field Naturalists Club of Victoria It is the oldest conservation group in ustralia Since 1884 it has published a journal, ''The Victorian Naturalist'', which is issued six times a year. Currently there are eight special interest groups (SIGs) within the FNCV, these are Botany, Fauna Survey, Fungi, Geology, Juniors, Marine Research, Microscopy and Terrestrial Invertebrates. The club also has a Day Group. The FNCV is situated at 1 Gardenia St, Blackburn, in Melbourne's ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stanley Robert Mitchell
Stanley Robert Mitchell (12 February 1881 – 22 March 1963) was an Australian commercial metallurgist as well as an amateur mineralogist and ethnologist. Early years Mitchell was born in St Kilda, Victoria, the oldest of eight siblings. His father, James Mitchell, was a commercial traveller and amateur mineralogist. He was educated at Armadale State School. From 1898 he was employed as a metallurgist and industrial chemist in a Footscray smelting works. Career Mitchell studied in the evenings at the Working Men's College of Melbourne; he gained a certificate in geology in 1911 and subsequently worked for the Department of Metallurgical Geology and Mineralogy. He established his own businesses, first as a gold assayer, then as S. R. Mitchell & Co., which was a refiner of precious metals from the 1920s, then Mitchell's Abrasives in 1930 to manufacture sandpaper. He also worked as a consultant to mining ventures and was a member of Australasian Institute of Mining and Meta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charles Austin Gardner
Charles Austin Gardner (6 January 1896 – 24 February 1970) was an English-born Western Australian botanist. Biography Born in Lancaster, in England, on 6 January 1896, Gardner emigrated to Western Australia with his family in 1909, where they took possession of land at Yorkrakine. Gardner showed an interest in art and botany from youth, becoming engrossed in his state museum's copy of Bentham's ''Flora Australiensis'' (London, 1863-78) and received encouragement from the government's botanist Desmond Herbert and botanical artist Emily Pelloe. After a BSc in Biology, he was appointed a botanical collector for the Forests Department in 1920, and the following year was engaged as botanist on the Kimberley Exploration Expedition, resulting in his first publication, ''Botanical Notes, Kimberley Division of Western Australia'', which gave descriptions for twenty new species. In 1924 he transferred to the Department of Agriculture, and following a departmental re-organisa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norman Barnett Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. Life Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived there from 1907 to 1915, where his father worked as an accountant at the Salvation Army mission in Japan. Norman attended the American School in Japan, where his closest friend was Gordon Bowles, a Quaker who, like him, later became an anthropologist. The family returned to Perth in August 1917, and soon after moved to Adelaide where Tindale took up a position as a library cadet at the Adelaide Public Library, together with another cadet, the future physicist, Mark Oliphant. In 1919 he began work as an entomologist at the South Australian Museum. From his early years, he had acquired the habit of taking notes on everything he observed, and cross-indexing them before going to sleep, a practice which he continued throughout his life, and which ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gilbert Percy Whitley
Gilbert Percy Whitley (9 June 1903 – 18 July 1975) was a British-born Australian ichthyologist and malacologist who was Curator of Fishes at the Australian Museum in Sydney for about 40 years. He was born at Swaythling, Southampton, England, and was educated at King Edward VI School, Southampton and the Royal Naval College, Osborne. Whitley migrated with his family to Sydney in 1921 and he joined the staff of the Australian Museum in 1922 while studying zoology at Sydney Technical College and the University of Sydney. In 1925 he was formally appointed Ichthyologist (later Curator of Fishes) at the Museum, a position he held until retirement in 1964. During his term of office he doubled the size of the ichthyological collection to 37,000 specimens through many collecting expeditions. Whitley was also a major force in the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, of which he was made a Fellow in 1934 and where he served as president during 1940–41, 1959–60 and 1973–74. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wilson Roy Wheeler
Wilson Roy Wheeler Order of the British Empire, MBE Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union Fellows, FRAOU (1905–1988), commonly referred to as W. Roy Wheeler, was an Australian postman and professional ornithologist. He was an active bird banding, bird bander and was convener of the Altona Survey Group, later part of the Victorian Ornithological Research Group. In 1965 he was awarded the Australian Natural History Medallion. He was a member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), President 1964–1965, and made a Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union Fellows, Fellow of the RAOU in 1971. He was also very active in the Bird Observation & Conservation Australia, Bird Observers Club (BOCA), serving as President (1951–1954), Honorary Secretary (1954–1971) and Honorary Treasurer (1963–1971). In 2005 he was commemorated, on the occasion of BOCA's centenary, by the creation of a new award, the W. Roy Wheeler Medallion for Excellence in Field Ornithology. In 19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Winifred Waddell
Winifred Waddell, MBE, (8 October 1884, Cumberland, England – 1972) was an English-born Australian botanist. She formed the Native Plants Preservation Society of Victoria, a society which was based on community dedicated to the preservation of Australian native plants. A Wildflower Sanctuary, named Winifred Waddell Wildflower Sanctuary. Early life Waddell was the eldest of four children, born in an area called Head's Nook. She attended Carlisle High School for Girls, and won many prizes, including for mathematics and botany. Career Waddell has hand coloured a number of water coloured engravings in a book called ''Illustrations of the British Flora: a series of wood engravings with dissection of British Plants.'' Waddell noticed the disappearance of native flora and destruction of bushland in Victoria, and formed a Wildflower Preservation Group of the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria in 1952. Waddell taught mathematics in Melbourne before she retired. She worked with na ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thistle Yolette Harris
Thistle Yolette Harris (29 July 1902 – 5 July 1990), also known as Thistle Stead, was an Australian botanist, educator, author and conservationist. Biography She was one of three daughters born to Charles Thomas Harris and Illma Richardson Harris (''née'' Rokes). She was educated at Redlands School SCECGS Redlands, Cremorne, where she was taught by the English teacher, Constance Le Plastrier (1864–1938), who was a member of the Naturalists Society of New South Wales and co-author of ''Botany for Australian Students'' (1916), and helped foster Harris' interest in native plants.Walter, J. (2009), pp.18-23 Harris died in 1990 at a nursing home in Summer Hill, New South Wales. Education Harris studied botany at the University of Sydney, graduating with a degree in botany in 1924 followed by a diploma of education in 1925 from Sydney Teachers College. After several years as a science teacher in secondary schools, she became a lecturer in science education at Sydney Teach ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norman Arthur Wakefield
Norman Arthur Wakefield (28 November 1918 – 23 September 1972) was an Australian teacher, naturalist, paleontologist and botanist, notable as an expert on ferns. He described many new species of plants. Wakefield was born in Romsey, Victoria, and educated at state schools in Orbost and at Scotch College, Melbourne with a BSc in biology. He joined the Victorian Education Department in 1934 and served as a teacher in various parts of East Gippsland.Clode, Danielle. (2002). 'Wakefield, Norman Arthur (1918-1972)'. ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (Volume 16, p. 461). Melbourne University Presaccessed 6 January 2008 During the Second World War Wakefield served with the Australian Army in Papua and New Guinea (1943–1944) and on Bougainville (1944–1945). He returned from his war service with a collection of ferns now housed in the British Museum and the National Herbarium of Victoria. From 1955 to 1965 he lectured in natural history and science at the Melbourne Teacher ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Emil Hermann Zeck
Emil Hermann Zeck (16 November 1891 – 3 September 1963) was an Australian entomologist and biological illustrator. He was highly respected for his beautiful and scientifically accurate illustrations, especially of insects. Life Zeck was born in Sydney. His artistic talent was recognised early and from 1908 to 1923 he worked as an entomological illustrator at the Government Printing Office in Sydney. He subsequently joined the staff of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture as an entomologist and remained there until his retirement in 1956. Honours and awards * Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (1951) * Australian Natural History Medallion The Australian Natural History Medallion is awarded each year by the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) to the person judged to have made the most meritorious contribution to the understanding of Australian Natural History. The idea origina ... (1961) References 1891 births 1963 deaths Australia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Hamlyn Willis
James Hamlyn Willis (28 January 1910 – 10 November 1995) was an Australian botanist. He described 64 new species of plants, and published more than 880 works including the landmark two-volume ''A Handbook to plants in Victoria'' between 1962 and 1973. Life Willis was born in Oakleigh, Victoria in 1910. In 1913 he moved with his family to Stanley, Tasmania, Stanley on the northern coast of Tasmania, Australia, where they remained until returning to Victoria in 1924. He attended Melbourne High School and in 1928, following receipt of a scholarship, began studies at the Victorian School of Forestry in Creswick, Victoria, Creswick, graduating with a Diploma of Forestry in 1930. For the next seven years he was employed by the Forests Commission of Victoria as a forest officer. In 1937 Willis joined the National Herbarium of Victoria and commenced studies at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in 1940. Between 1958 and 1959, he held the pos ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Keith Alfred Hindwood
Keith Alfred Hindwood (1904-1971) was a Sydney-based Australian businessman and amateur ornithologist. He joined the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in 1924, served as President 1944–1946, and was elected a Fellow of the RAOU in 1951. He was the most prolific contributor to the RAOU journal, the ''Emu'', with some 600 pages of contributions from his first major paper in 1926 to his death. He coauthored, with Arnold McGill, ''The Birds of Sydney'' (1958). In 1959 he was awarded the Australian Natural History Medallion. References * McGill, A.R. (1971). Obituary. Keith Alfred Hindwood. ''Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius''. The emu' ...'' 71: 183–184. * Robin, Libby. (2001). ''The Flight of the Emu: a hundred years of Australian ornithology 1901-2001''. C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |