Rodway, Leonard   (1853 - 1936)

[Orchard (1999) gives the initial 'R.' for a second given name after Leonard]

Born in Torquay, England, on 5 October 1853, died in Kingston, Tasmania, on 9 March 1936.

Arrived in Tasmania (via Queensland) in 1880 and practised as a dentist. Appointed Honorary Dental Surgeon at Hobart General Hospital (1890-1922).

Appointed Honorary Government Botanist in 1896, and held the position until 1932. In 1928 he was appointed Honorary Curator of the Tasmanian Museum Herbarium, until his resignation in 1932.

He was lecturer in botany at the University of Tasmania (1923-1929) and a trustee of the Tasmanian Museum and Botanic Gardens (1911-1923).

For 30 years he was the premier authority on the Tasmanian flora, and gathered a group of correspondents and collectors to build the herbarium. Many of these were family members, including Olive Rodway, his second wife; Frederick, Ernest, and Charles Lewis Rodway, his sons; John Rodway, his grandson (son of Ernest); Gwenda Rodway (later G. Davis), his grand-daughter (daughter of Frederick).

Rodway published extensively on the Tasmanian flora, with his major work being The Tasmanian Flora (1903). He also published a series of major monographs in the Papers & Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania on bryophytes (1912-1916) and numerous papers on fungi (1897-1930).

His herbarium is housed in HO, with duplicates in A, AK, B, CANB, H, K, MEL, NSW and PRE.

Sources:

• Text: extracted from A.E.Orchard (1999) A History of Systematic Botany in Australia, in Flora of Australia Vol.1, 2nd ed., ABRS. [consult for source references]
• Image: detail of portrait of Leonard Rodway painted by his daughter, Florence, in c. 1936; now part of the collections of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (AG 31)

 

 

Collecting localities for 'Rodway, L.' from AVH (2024)

Data from 8,665 specimens