Fairall, Arthur Robert   (1920 - 1970)

South African horticulturalist from Pietermaritzburg, Natal. Although he had to leave school at age 12 to help support his family during the Depression, he found work as a gardener for the Pietermaritzburg Parks Department and in 1938 won a scholarship to study horticulture at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town.

During the Second World War, he fought in North Africa in the South African Engineers and was awarded the Military Cross and a bar for his service in Italy with the British Army.

After the war, he moved with his wife, Pauline Bond, to Pietermaritzburg and joined the Parks Department, becoming Superintendent of Parks in 1954. During his tenure he redesigned Alexandra Park, created new parks, such as Wiley and Elizabeth Parks, instituted public programmes and opened the department's greenhouses to the public.

In 1962, he accepted an appointment as Superintendent of Kings Park and moved with his family to Perth, Western Australia.

He was responsible for laying out the Botanic Garden and much of the Park's landscaping. He became interested in propagating native plants and made plant and seed collecting trips into the interior of WA. He died of a heart attack while fighting a bushfire in the park in March 1970. His book West Australian Native Plants in Cultivation was published in the same year.

He is commemorated by the WA plant Lambertia fairallii Keighery in the Proteaceae.

Source: Extracted from:
https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000062444
Portrait Photo: back dust-jacket of West Australian Native Plants in Cultivation (1970).

Collecting localities for 'Fairall, A.' from AVH (2021)

Data from 1,491 specimens