George Caley
Encyclopedia
- For aviation pioneer see Sir George Cayley
- "Caley" redirects here - for places and things colloquially known as "Caley" or "The Caley", see CaledonianCaledonianCaledonian is a geographical term used to refer to places, species, or items in or from Scotland, or particularly the Scottish Highlands. It derives from Caledonia, the Roman name for the area of modern Scotland...
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George Caley (10 June 1770 – 23 May 1829) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
botanist and explorer in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
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Early life
Caley was born in CravenCraven
Craven is a local government district in North Yorkshire, England that came into being in 1974, centred on the market town of Skipton. In the changes to British local government of that year this district was formed as the merger of Skipton urban district, Settle Rural District and most of Skipton...
, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of a horse-dealer. He was educated at the Free Grammar School at Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
for around four years and was then taken into his father's stables. Coming across a volume on farriery, he became interested in the herbs mentioned in prescriptions and this led to his teaching himself botany. With the encouragement of the noted botanist, Dr William Withering (1744-1799), he became associated with the Manchester School of Botanists. In March 1795 he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...
who, after warning him about the small financial rewards to be expected by a botanist for his labour, suggested that he might be able to obtain work for him as a gardener's labourer, which would give opportunities of increasing his knowledge. He worked in Kew Gardens and other gardens.
Australia
Banks appointed Caley as a botanical collector in New South WalesNew South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
in 1798. He was given a free passage to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
aboard the HMS Speedy, where he arrived on 15 April 1800. He was paid weekly wage of 15 shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s, was allowed rations by the government and he was also given a cottage at Parramatta
Parramatta, New South Wales
Parramatta is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Greater Western Sydney west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Parramatta River. Parramatta is the administrative seat of the Local Government Area of the City of Parramatta...
. Governor King
Philip Gidley King
Captain Philip Gidley King RN was a British naval officer and colonial administrator. He is best known as the official founder of the first European settlement on Norfolk Island and as the third Governor of New South Wales.-Early years and establishment of Norfolk Island settlement:King was born...
, writing to Banks in September 1800, expressed his intention to establish a botanical garden near the cottage. Caley sent many botanical and other specimens to Banks and his letters also kept Banks informed of the general conditions of the colony as well as scientific matters. Caley was the first to make a serious effort to study the Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...
. In 1801 Caley went with Lieutenant James Grant
James Grant (navigator)
James Grant was a British Royal Navy officer and navigator in the early nineteenth century. He made several voyages to Australia and Tasmania, and was the first to map parts of the south coast of Australia.-Early life:...
to Western Port
Western Port
Western Port, is sometimes called "Western Port Bay", is a large tidal bay in southern Victoria, Australia opening into Bass Strait. It is the second largest bay in Victoria. Geographically, it is dominated by the two large islands; French Island and Phillip Island. Contrary to its name, it lies to...
and in 1804 he gave King a long report on "A journey to ascertain the Limits or Boundaries of Vaccary Forest" (the Cowpastures). Caley was able to report on the wild cattle, which he found considerably increased in numbers. In November 1804 Caley, with three convict assistants, attempted to cross the Blue Mountains along the northern edge of the Grose Valley. He managed to reach and ascend a mountain he named Mount Banks. However, upon being struck by the awe-inspiring views of the sheer cliffs of the Grose Valley stretching away to the south, he decided to turn back, unaware he was only a day's walk away from the western escarpment and the open country lying beyond. In October 1805 he visited Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...
and went to Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
at the end of November that year.
In August 1808 Banks wrote to Caley offering him an annuity of £50 a year and to release him from all services beyond what he voluntarily wished to perform and to remain in New South Wales if he desired. Caley was homesick for England, however, and decided to return to England.
Later life
Caley returned to England in 1810 and in 1816 was appointed curator of the botanic gardens in St VincentSaint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is an island country in the Lesser Antilles chain, namely in the southern portion of the Windward Islands, which lie at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea where the latter meets the Atlantic Ocean....
, West Indies. He resigned from this position in December 1822 and was back in England in the following May. He died on 23 May 1829. He had married in 1816 but his wife predeceased him without children.
Governor King found Caley 'eccentric and morose', both Banks and King found Caley difficult and at times tactless and unreasonable. He was, however, a good worker, a skilful and accurate botanist and he was thoroughly honest. He did not publish any works, but his collections did much to spread a knowledge of Australian plants in the early years of the nineteenth century. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Caley when citing
Author citation (botany)
In botanical nomenclature, author citation refers to citing the person who validly published a botanical name, i.e. who first published the name while fulfilling the formal requirements as specified by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature...
a botanical name
Botanical name
A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants...
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See also
- List of Blue Mountains articles
- List of gardener-botanist explorers of the Enlightenment