Articles by Diane Challenor

Allan Cunningham’s Plant Specimens 1816-1822

This book is an colossal achievement by Dr A.E. Orchard and T.A. Orchard. The book is A4 size, with 471 pages and is a comprehensive catalogue of Allan Cunningham’s Plant Specimens collected between 1816-1822, tabulating about 9000 surviving specimens matched against Mr Cunningham’s original lists. This covers his most prolific collecting periods, including the Oxley Expedition of 1817, King’s four coastal surveys, with side trips to Timor and Mauritius, King’s voyage to Tasmania in 1818, Cunningham’s exploration of the Sydney district, the Blue Moutains and the Five Islands (Illawarra) district, and his first inland expedition under his own auspices to the country north of Bathurst in 1822.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on July 7, 2020October 27, 2020

Tracking and Mapping the Explorers
by John Whitehead

When studying the coming and goings of geographical explorers you need a map, a very precise, detailed readable map along with clear geographic reference points. A map that shows where the explorers walked, where they camped, what they observed and what they reported in their journals. John Whitehead understood this when he walked in the footsteps of the explorers. He has taken the time to share his experience by recording geographic locations, providing maps and photos of a landscape that in some places still remains visually similar to what the explorers saw. Using the explorers’ original maps and journals, John found where they had been and with respect and dedication stood where these intrepid explorers once stood. His books are indispensable for those who take the time to walk in the footsteps of our early colonial adventurers.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on January 25, 2020July 30, 2020

George and Sarah Suttor, a biography
by Margaret Winmill

This book tells the story of George Suttor, and his wife Sarah, and their journey to Australia bringing plants to New South Wales in 1800 for Sir Joseph Banks. It follows their life in the new colony: initially in Sydney, involvement in the rum rebellion, crossing the Blue Mountains and settling in Bathurst, and their later journey around Europe in 1839 to study methods of grape growing and wine making.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on October 6, 2018July 8, 2020

Margaret Winmill has written a biographical gem about George (1776-1859) and Sarah Suttor

I’m impressed with the way this biography, of George and Sarah Suttor, has been structured by Margaret Winmill, George and Sarah’s great-great-great-granddaughter. The internal design of the book makes its content accessible. The paper quality and dimensions are good, the font size and font choice make the reading comfortable, and the white space is generous. The text is written in a style that makes for easy reading, and feeds the desire to know more.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on October 2, 2018June 25, 2020

Dr Tony and Tessa Orchard have achieved so much

The Allan Cunningham Project has just received a copy of Tony and Tessa Orchard’s latest publication: The Australian Botanical Journals of Allan Cunningham. The book is another example of the authors’ tenacity in making Australian Colonial History accessible.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on September 7, 2018June 25, 2020

Allan Cunningham’s Journals 1814 to 1822
by A.E. and T.A. Orchard

Dr AE Orchard and Mrs T.A. Orchard have published a series of books providing, for the first time, a complete transcription of Allan Cunningham’s personal journals, commencing in 1814. Their project is ongoing, with the goal of making accessible a comprehensive and accurate transcription of all of Allan Cunningham’s journals and letters. The books described on this page are: Kings Collectors for Kew – James Bowie and Allan Cunningham Brazil; The Australian Botanical Journals October 1816 to February 1819; The Australian Botanical Journals February 1819 to 1822.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on September 7, 2018July 8, 2020

The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft
by Tom Griffiths

The minute I saw Tom Griffith’s book description on Amazon I knew his book was a book I must read. It was listed on Kindle Unlimited, but I wasn’t a subscriber. I’d been considering joining Amazon’s eBook library, so I subscribed and picked up “The Art of Time Travel” eBook.

My book-blog posts at Artuccino, show how much I love books about the craft of writing. Closely associated with the craft of writing is the historians’ craft. If you combine my interest in the craft of writing, to my enthusiasm for collecting fragments of history related to Allan Cunningham, then it may become clear that a book about historians, Australian historians, would be one that I would gobble up.…

Nancy Burbidge Medal awarded to A Orchard

We’re proud to announce that Tony (Anthony) Orchard, a valued contributor to The Allan Cunningham Project, and author of several books dedicated to the history of Allan Cunningham, has been presented the Nancy T. Burbidge Medal for 2016.…

Allan Cunningham
Letters of a Botanist Explorer
1791-1839

Allan Cunningham is rightly celebrated as the leading botanist in Australia in the first half of the 19th century. He was also an accomplished explorer, and a pioneer physical geographer, plant geographer and ecologist at a time when those sciences were in their infancy. Cunningham was a very enthusiastic correspondent, both in the numbers and (often) length of his letters, and this book brings together over 490 letters, to him, from him, and (between third parties) about him. More ……

by Diane Challenor
Posted on December 1, 2015July 7, 2020

King’s Collectors for Kew

In 1814, with the close of the Napoleonic Wars, Sir Joseph Banks persuaded the Prince Regent (later King George IV) to send two collectors to the colonies of New South Wales and the Cape of Good Hope to gather propagating material to rejuvenate and enhance the King’s Garden at Kew, then, as now, one of the world’s great botanic gardens. More ……

by Diane Challenor
Posted on December 1, 2015July 7, 2020

The Botanist and the Judge

On Christmas Day, 1818, the tiny naval Cutter ‘Mermaid’, under the command of Lieutenant Phillip Parker King, sailed through Sydney Heads en route to Tasmania, where King intended to survey the newly discovered harbours of Port Davey and Macquarie Harbour. On board were two passengers, the botanist Allan Cunningham … and Justice Barron Field.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on November 28, 2015July 7, 2020

Allan Cunningham Botanist and Explorer

Allan Cunningham was perhaps, with the exception of Robert Brown, the most accomplished of the botanists sent out from Kew Gardens during the golden age when Sir Joseph Banks was director. He also explored much of south-eastern Australia in the years 1817 to 1828.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 27, 2013July 25, 2020

Allan Cunningham – Australian Collecting Localities by Suzanne Curry, Bruce Maslin & John Maslin

The focus of this publication is to provide precise locality information for the numerous localities visited by Allan Cunningham between December 1817 and April 1822 when he was the botanist accompanying Phillip Parker King on his hydrographic surveys of the Australian coastline. This information will facilitate the duration of Cunningham’s plant specimens, which are distributed among herbaria worldwide, and will assist those who wish to revisit his collecting localities.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 24, 2013July 26, 2020

MOST PERFECTLY SAFE
by Granville Allen Mawer

Granville Allen Mawer takes us back to Australia’s colonial past to vividly describe what life was really like on a convict transport – and conduct an investigation into a train of disasters that, were they to occur today, would be at least be worth a Royal Commission and might put paid to a political career or two…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 24, 2013April 28, 2020

Phillip Parker King 1791-1856
by Brian Abbott

The life of Phillip Parker King , son of Governor Philip Gidley King, was inextricably linked with the establishment of the colony of New South Wales. His maritime exploration and survey work around Australia 1817-1822 completed the work of Matthew Flinders. His hydrographic work in the Magellan Straits 1826-1830 laid the platform for the famous voyage of HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin 1831-1836. …

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 24, 2013June 27, 2020

King of the Australian Coast
by Marsden Hordern

Phillip Parker King is perhaps one of Australia’s greatest yet largely unsung early maritime surveyors. Hordern relives King’s series of gruelling voyages between 1817 and 1822 – from the maritime hazards of the reefs, shoals, tides and unpredictable weather to the unfamiliar wildlife and Aboriginal presence he encountered along the way.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 24, 2013June 27, 2020

The Australian Colonial House

James Broadbent’s The Australian Colonial House is the first comprehensive history of domestic architecture in New South Wales during its first fifty years. It looks at the houses that were built, and the influences on their building – not only the stylistic influences of contemporary British architecture and the influences of climate and distance, but also the social influences which motivated their builders.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 24, 2013June 27, 2020

The Golden Decade of Australian Architecture

This book discusses 27 properties built by John Verge in the 1800s. Of those, Allan Cunningham spent many pleasant hours in at least two. One was the home of Hannibal Macarthur, The Vineyard (built 1835) and the other was the home of his friend, the Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay, Elizabeth Bay House (built 1835).…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 24, 2013June 30, 2020

Memoirs of George Suttor FLS

George Suttor and his family arrived in Sydney for the first time in November 6, 1800. He travelled with a precious collection of plants supplied by Sir Joseph Banks for the New South Wales colony. It was in George Suttor’s home in Elizabeth Street Sydney where Allan Cunningham was nursed during his fatal illness in 1839.…

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 23, 2013June 30, 2020

BREAKING THE BANK
by Carol Baxter

It was the largest bank robbery in Australian history. On Sunday 14 September 1828, thieves tunneled through a sewage drain into the vault of Sydney’s Bank of Australia and stole £14,000 in notes and cash – the equivalent of $20 million in today’s currency. …

by Diane Challenor
Posted on August 23, 2013April 28, 2020