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Richard Hind Cambage (7 November 1859 – 28 November 1928) was an Australian
surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...
and
botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
who made important contributions to the description of the genera ''
Acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
'' and ''
Eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...
''.


Early life

Cambage, son of John Fisher Cambage, was born at Applegarth near
Milton, New South Wales Milton is a village in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, within the City of Shoalhaven. It was founded in 1860, named after the property of post master George Knight and became an important regional centre during the 19th Cent ...
. He was educated at state and private schools (including
Ulladulla Ulladulla is a coastal town in New South Wales, Australia in the City of Shoalhaven local government area. It is on the Princes Highway about south of Sydney, halfway between Batemans Bay to the south and Nowra to the north. Ulladulla has cl ...
Public School), and for a short time was a teacher at the Milton State School. In 1878 he became an assistant to M. J. Callaghan, surveyor, and took part in the survey of National Park in 1879 and 1880. On 11 July 1881 at the Elizabeth Street registry office,
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
, he married Fanny Skillman (d.1897), daughter of the headteacher at Ulladulla.


Surveying career

He qualified as a licensed surveyor in June 1882, was engaged in the Department of Lands for three years as a draftsman and then entered the department of mines as a mining surveyor on 16 February 1885. In 1900 he carried out a difficult and dangerous survey of abandoned
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
workings running under the harbour and sea-bed. In 1902 was appointed chief mining surveyor and investigated the site of the Mount Kembla mining disaster which killed 96 men and boys. Cambage's evidence to the royal commission on the disaster led to the reversal of the coroner's verdict that the miners had died of
carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...
poisoning. He was chief mining surveyor until 1 January 1916, when he was made under-secretary of the mines department. He retired from the public service on 7 November 1924. Although a busy public servant he contrived to carry on a large amount of other work and cultivated many interests. Front 1909 to 1915 he lectured on surveying at
Sydney Technical College The Sydney Technical College, now known as the TAFE New South Wales Sydney Institute, is a technical school established in 1878, that superseded the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts. The college is one of Australia's oldest technical education i ...
, was on three occasions elected president of the Institution of Surveyors, and was for 15 years a member of its board of examiners.


Botany career

He had early become much interested in geology and botany, and between 1901 and 1903 contributed to the Linnean Society a series of "Notes on the Botany of the Interior of New South Wales" of which as "Notes on the Native Flora of New South Wales", a further long series was published over a period of more than 20 years. He was secretary of the Royal Society of New South Wales from 1914 to 1922 and from 1925 to 1928 and was president in 1912 and 1923. He was a member of the council of the
Linnean Society of New South Wales The Linnean Society of New South Wales promotes ''the Cultivation and Study of the Science of Natural History in all its Branches'' and was founded in Sydney, New South Wales (Australia) in 1874 and incorporated in 1884. History The Society succe ...
from 1906 and was its president in 1924. He was honorary secretary of the Australian National Research Council from its inception in 1919 until 1926, and organized the second pan-Pacific science congress held in Melbourne and Sydney in 1923. He was its president from 1926 to 1928 and he was elected president of the
Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science The Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) is an organisation that was founded in 1888 as the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science to promote science. It was modelled on the British As ...
In 1928. He was also president of the New South Wales forest league and did much work for the Australian wattle league. In spite of the time spent on administrative work Cambage was able to make valuable contributions to science. For many years he systematically planted seeds of ''
Acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
'', and at the time of his death had contributed 13 papers to the Journal of the Royal Society with descriptions of 130 species, and he also did some papers on the
eucalypts Eucalypt is a descriptive name for woody plants with capsule fruiting bodies belonging to seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australasia: ''Eucalyptus'', ''Corymbia'', ''Angophora'', ''Stockwellia'', ''Allosynca ...
. As a member of the Royal Australian Historical Society his knowledge of surveying and bushcraft enabled him to throw light on the journeys of some of the early explorers. A paper on Exploration Beyond the Upper Nepean in 1798, was published separately as a pamphlet in 1920. He died suddenly on 28 November 1928. ''
Acacia cambagei ''Acacia cambagei'', commonly known as gidgee, stinking wattle, stinking gidgee in English, or gidjiirr, by transliteration from indigenous languages of north-western NSW, is an endemic tree of Australia. It is found primarily in semiarid and ...
'' and ''
Eucalyptus cambageana ''Eucalyptus cambageana'', commonly known as the Dawson River blackbutt, Dawson gum or Coowarra box, is a species of tree that is endemic to Queensland, Australia. It is a medium-sized tree with hard, rough bark on the lower trunk, smooth white t ...
'' were named after him.


References

* *McMinn, W.G
Cambage, Richard Hind (1859–1928)
Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
, Volume 7, MUP, 1979, pp 529–530. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cambage, Richard Hind 20th-century Australian botanists Australian surveyors Australian taxonomists 1859 births 1928 deaths Members of the Linnean Society of New South Wales Commanders of the Order of the British Empire 19th-century Australian botanists