22nd December 1831

On this day, 22nd December 1831, Charles Fraser, 1788 – 1831, ¹ the Colonial Botanist, working in Port Jackson, died. Charles was a founder of the Botanic Gardens in Sydney and took part in many exploratory expeditions including several in the company of Allan Cunningham and contributed an enormous amount of knowledge to the science of botany. The death of this man would result in Allan’s brother Richard coming to Australia to take up the role of Colonial Botanist and only a few years later, after Richard’s unfortunate violent death in 1835, Allan would return to Australia in 1837 to become the Colonial Botanist. ²

1. Learn more about Charles Falser, Colonial Botanist of New South Wales at Wikipedia, plus The Australian Dictionary of Biography has an interesting entry about Mr Fraser[↩]
2. The full text of Robert Heward’s Biographical Sketch of Allan Cunningham is available here, at The Allan Cunningham Project, where he refers to Charles Fraser’s death and its impact on Allan Cunningham and his brother.[↩]