Allan Cunningham (1791 - 1839)

Born 13 Jul 1791 in London, Middlesex, England

Died 27 Jun 1839 at age 47 in Sydney, New South Wales

Problems/Questions Profile manager: John Andrewartha [send private message]

Biography

Allan Cunningham is Notable.

Allan Cunningham was an Australian explorer.

Allan Cunningham was born in Surrey, England.

Allan Cunningham ^[1] (1791-1839), botanist and explorer, was born on 13 July 1791 at Wimbledon, Surrey, England, elder son of Allan Cunningham of Renfrewshire, Scotland, and an English mother, née Dickin.

He was educated at a private school in Putney and worked for a time in a conveyancer's office in Lincoln's Inn, but the law was not to his liking and in 1808 he accepted a position at the herbarium at Kew as clerk to the curator of the Royal Gardens, William T. Aiton (1766-1849), then completing work on the second edition of his father's Hortus Kewensis, 1-3 (London, 1810-13).
At Kew Cunningham met Robert Brown, who had been botanist in the Investigator with Matthew Flinders and then librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, and on Banks's recommendation was appointed a botanical collector to the Royal Gardens.

On 29 October 1814 Cunningham sailed with James Bowie in H.M.S. Duncan for Rio de Janeiro to collect specimens in Brazil, where they remained for two years. Bowie was then ordered to the Cape of Good Hope and Cunningham to New South Wales. Cunningham arrived at Sydney Cove in the Surry on 20 December 1816. He was received kindly by Governor Lachlan Macquarie who suggested that he join John Oxley's projected expedition into the country west of the Blue Mountains: this was arranged and while awaiting departure Cunningham rented a cottage at Parramatta and botanized in the surrounding district.

He left Parramatta in April 1817 and returned in September having accompanied Oxley to the Lachlan River marshes and collected specimens of about 450 plant species. The last four months of 1817 were spent preparing these specimens for dispatch to Kew, in more collecting around Parramatta, and in preparing to join Phillip Parker King's voyage to the north and north-west coasts of Australia in the cutter Mermaid, which sailed from Sydney on 21 December 1817. . . . more . . adb.anu.edu

Sources

1. ↑ T. M. Perry, Cunningham, Allan (1791–1839), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
   published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 21 October 2018.