Joseph James Fletcher
Encyclopedia
Joseph James Fletcher was an Australia
n biologist
, winner of the 1921 Clarke Medal
.
Fletcher was born at Auckland
, New Zealand
the son of the Rev Joseph Horner Fletcher
, a Methodist
clergyman, and his wife Kate, née Green. The family arrived in Australia early in 1861, and, after a term of four years in Queensland (where Joseph James studied at Ipswich Grammar School
), Rev. Fletcher went to Sydney
to become principal of Newington College
, from 1865 to 1887. J. J. Fletcher completed his schooling at Newington (1865-1867) and then went to the University of Sydney
and graduating B.A.
in 1870 and M.A.
in 1876. In between these years he was a master at Wesley College, Melbourne
, under Professor M. H. Irving
. As no science degree was offered in Australia, in 1876 resigned from Wesley and went to London
, initially studying at the Royal School of Mines
and University College
, University of London
where he studied biology and took his B.Sc.
degree there in 1879. He studied for a time at Cambridge
and in 1881 published his first paper.
In 1881 Fletcher decided to return to Australia, and, before leaving England, prepared a Catalogue of Papers and Works relating to the Mammalian orders, Marsupial
la and Monotremata, which was published in Sydney soon after his arrival. There were no openings for young scientists in Sydney at this period, so Fletcher joined the staff of Newington College where his father was still principal. He spent four years at the school and was a successful teacher, encouraging his pupils to find out things for themselves instead of merely trying to remember what their teacher had told them. During this period he joined the Linnean Society of New South Wales
, met Sir William Macleay
, and in 1885 was given the position of director and librarian of the society. This title was afterwards changed to secretary. He began his duties on 1 January 1886 and for over 33 years devoted his life to the service of the society. During this period he edited 33 volumes of Proceedings with the greatest care.
Fletcher also published in 1892 a selection of Sermons, Addresses and Essays by his father, with a biographical sketch, and in 1893 edited The Macleay Memorial Volume, for which he wrote an excellent memoir of Macleay. He had done some very good research work in connexion with the embryology of the marsupials, and on Australian earthworm
s. Later he took up the amphibia, on which he eventually became an authority. In January 1900, he was president of the biology section at the meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and chose for the subject of his address "The Rise and early Progress of our Knowledge of the Australian Fauna", a work of much value to all interested in the history of research in the natural history of Australia. In addition to being secretary of the Linnean Society and editor of its Proceedings, Fletcher was an executor of Macleay's will and he had much work in carrying out the provisions of it as financial and legal difficulties arose in connexion with the appointment of a bacteriologist and the foundation of the research fellowships.
In his later years Fletcher gave more and more time to botany, and did important work on acacia
s, grevillea
s and Loranthaceae
. On 31 March 1919 he resigned his position as secretary to the Linnean Society and was elected president in 1920 and 1921. His address on "The Society's Heritage from the Macleays", a very interesting record, occupies nearly 70 pages in volume XLV of the Proceedings. After an accident in 1922 he was much confined to his home for the remainder of his life. He overhauled and completed the arranging and labelling of his own zoological collection in 1923 before presenting it to the Australian Museum
. Fletcher also gave more than 300 books and pamphlets to the Mitchell Library. Fletcher died suddenly at his home in Hunters Hill, New South Wales
on 15 May 1926, leaving a widow. Fletcher was awarded the Clarke Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales
in 1921.
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...
n biologist
Biologist
A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
, winner of the 1921 Clarke Medal
Clarke Medal
The Clarke Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of New South Wales for distinguished work in the Natural sciences.Named in honour of the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, one of the founders of the Society...
.
Fletcher was born at Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
the son of the Rev Joseph Horner Fletcher
Joseph Horner Fletcher
Joseph Horner Fletcher was a West Indies-born Methodist minister of English descent and was the founding Principal of Wesley College, Auckland and the second President of Newington College, Sydney.-Early life:...
, a Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
clergyman, and his wife Kate, née Green. The family arrived in Australia early in 1861, and, after a term of four years in Queensland (where Joseph James studied at Ipswich Grammar School
Ipswich Grammar School
Ipswich Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, day and boarding school for boys, located in Ipswich, a city situated on the Bremer River in South East Queensland, Australia...
), Rev. Fletcher went 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...
to become principal of Newington College
Newington College
Newington College is an independent, Uniting Church, day and boarding school for boys, located in Stanmore, an inner-western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
, from 1865 to 1887. J. J. Fletcher completed his schooling at Newington (1865-1867) and then went to the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
and graduating B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1870 and M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in 1876. In between these years he was a master at Wesley College, Melbourne
Wesley College, Melbourne
Wesley College, Melbourne is an independent, co-educational, Christian day school in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1866, the college is a school of the Uniting Church in Australia. Wesley is the largest school in Australia by enrolment, with 3,511 students and 564 full-time staff...
, under Professor M. H. Irving
Martin Howy Irving
Martin Howy Irving was an English rower and educationist who spent nearly all his career in Australia .Irving was born in St Pancras, London, the son of Edward Irving, a major figure of the Catholic Apostolic Church, whom Carlyle called the "freest, brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever came...
. As no science degree was offered in Australia, in 1876 resigned from Wesley and went to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, initially studying at the Royal School of Mines
Royal School of Mines
Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London.- History :The Royal School of Mines was established in 1851, as the Government School of Mines and Science Applied to the Arts...
and University College
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
where he studied biology and took his B.Sc.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
degree there in 1879. He studied for a time at Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and in 1881 published his first paper.
In 1881 Fletcher decided to return to Australia, and, before leaving England, prepared a Catalogue of Papers and Works relating to the Mammalian orders, Marsupial
Marsupial
Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by giving birth to relatively undeveloped young. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands, with the remaining 100 found in the Americas, primarily in South America, but with thirteen in Central...
la and Monotremata, which was published in Sydney soon after his arrival. There were no openings for young scientists in Sydney at this period, so Fletcher joined the staff of Newington College where his father was still principal. He spent four years at the school and was a successful teacher, encouraging his pupils to find out things for themselves instead of merely trying to remember what their teacher had told them. During this period he joined the Linnean Society of New South Wales
Linnean Society of New South Wales
The Linnean Society of New South Wales promotes the Cultivation and Study of the Science of Natural History in all its Branches and was founded in Sydney, New South Wales in 1874 and incorporated in 1884. It succeeded the Entomological Society of New South Wales, founded in 1862 and folded in...
, met Sir William Macleay
William John Macleay
Sir William John Macleay . was an Australian politician, zoologist and naturalist.-Early life:Macleay was born at Wick, Caithness, Scotland, second son of Kenneth Macleay of Keiss and his wife Barbara, née Horne...
, and in 1885 was given the position of director and librarian of the society. This title was afterwards changed to secretary. He began his duties on 1 January 1886 and for over 33 years devoted his life to the service of the society. During this period he edited 33 volumes of Proceedings with the greatest care.
Fletcher also published in 1892 a selection of Sermons, Addresses and Essays by his father, with a biographical sketch, and in 1893 edited The Macleay Memorial Volume, for which he wrote an excellent memoir of Macleay. He had done some very good research work in connexion with the embryology of the marsupials, and on Australian earthworm
Earthworm
Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...
s. Later he took up the amphibia, on which he eventually became an authority. In January 1900, he was president of the biology section at the meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and chose for the subject of his address "The Rise and early Progress of our Knowledge of the Australian Fauna", a work of much value to all interested in the history of research in the natural history of Australia. In addition to being secretary of the Linnean Society and editor of its Proceedings, Fletcher was an executor of Macleay's will and he had much work in carrying out the provisions of it as financial and legal difficulties arose in connexion with the appointment of a bacteriologist and the foundation of the research fellowships.
In his later years Fletcher gave more and more time to botany, and did important work on acacia
Acacia
Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...
s, grevillea
Grevillea
Grevillea is a diverse genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the protea family Proteaceae, native to Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Sulawesi. It was named in honour of Charles Francis Greville. The species range from prostrate shrubs less than 0.5 m tall to trees...
s and Loranthaceae
Loranthaceae
Loranthaceae is a family of flowering plants, which has been universally recognized by taxonomists. It consists of about 75 genera and 1,000 species of woody plants, many of them hemi-parasites, all of them except three having the mistletoe habit...
. On 31 March 1919 he resigned his position as secretary to the Linnean Society and was elected president in 1920 and 1921. His address on "The Society's Heritage from the Macleays", a very interesting record, occupies nearly 70 pages in volume XLV of the Proceedings. After an accident in 1922 he was much confined to his home for the remainder of his life. He overhauled and completed the arranging and labelling of his own zoological collection in 1923 before presenting it to the Australian Museum
Australian Museum
The Australian Museum is the oldest museum in Australia, with an international reputation in the fields of natural history and anthropology. It features collections of vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, as well as mineralogy, palaeontology, and anthropology...
. Fletcher also gave more than 300 books and pamphlets to the Mitchell Library. Fletcher died suddenly at his home in Hunters Hill, New South Wales
Hunters Hill, New South Wales
Hunters Hill is a suburb in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Hunters Hill is located 9 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Hunter's Hill.Hunters Hill is situated on a...
on 15 May 1926, leaving a widow. Fletcher was awarded the Clarke Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales
Royal Society of New South Wales
The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. It was established as the Philosophical Society of Australasia on 27 June 1821...
in 1921.
External links
- G. P. Walsh, 'Fletcher, Joseph James (1850? - 1926)', Australian Dictionary of BiographyAustralian Dictionary of BiographyThe Australian Dictionary of Biography is a national, co-operative enterprise, founded and maintained by the Australian National University to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's history....
, Volume 8, MUP, 1981, pp 525-526. Retrieved on 21 October 2008