Robertson, John George (1803 - 1862)
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 15 October 1803, died at 'Baronald' near
Lanark, Scotland, in 1862.
Collected in India in 1828 before emigrating to Tasmania in 1831. Manager
of Lawrence's estate 'Formosa'. Collected
in Tasmania and Victoria, with the encouragement of Gunn.
Moved to Victoria in 1840-1841. Collected extensively on his property
'Wando Vale' near Casterton, Victoria, from at least January 1842-May
1844, and in the south-east of South Australia.
His Tasmanian collections
were forwarded to Gunn, and thus are mainly at K, with some at E, HO and
MEL.
He returned to England in the mid-1850s with a personal collection
of 4000 Victorian specimens which he donated to W.Hooker, and these are also in K. A few specimens are also in MEL.
Rev. H.M.R. Rupp wrote in The Victorian Naturalist Vol.58, p.30, June 1941:
In 1840 Robertson left Tasmania, and landed at Portland, Victoria, where the Hentys had recently established themselves as
pioneer settlers. He brought with him a valuable consignment of
stock, and ultimately settled at Wando Vale. Here on several
occasions he entertained Governor Latrobe, who was himself something of a botanist. It seems probable that Gunn also visited
Wando Vale; for all the labels on Robertson's specimens at Sydney [NSW]
are in the same handwriting as those of Gunn's herbarium.
Robertson collected extensively along the Glenelg and Wando
Rivers, and about Portland. . . .
Robertson sold Wando Vale after some years and returned to
Scotland, where he purchased "Baronald," near Lanark, and died
there at a comparatively early age in 1862.
He had a high estimation of his own knowledge of botany, asserting in a letter to Sir William Hooker at Kew in November 1854:
"With the exception of the late Mr Robert Lawrence, Mr Ronald Gunn, and our much-respected ex-Governor, Mr La Trobe, I never met any individual resident who knew anything more about Australian plants than myself"
[The omission of Mueller is remarkable]
He is honoured in the orchid name Calochilus robertsonii, and in Ranunculus robertsonii.
Note: mentioned in an article in Australian Garden History 30 (1) July 2018, p.17-18
Source: Extracted from:
A.E.Orchard (1999) A History of Systematic
Botany in Australia, in Flora of Australia Vol.1, 2nd ed.,
ABRS.
The Victorian Naturalist Vol.58, p.30, June 1941
Collecting localities for 'Robertson, J.G.' from AVH (2024)
Data from 202 specimens
