Frederick Wollaston Hutton

Frederick Wollaston Hutton

Man, like the apes, has several vestigial organs which are of no use to him, but which are well developed and useful in other animals. Among these are the remains of a third eye-lid, as well as muscles for moving the ears and the tail. Several other muscles, which are always found in the lower animals, but which are generally absent in man, are occasionally developed in him; and it is chiefly the presence of these vestigial and useless structures which has convinced naturalists that man has a common origin with other mammals.

An example of the talk that got Hutton into trouble with Dunedin’s Presbyterian Church. From FW Hutton, The Lesson of Evolution, Duckworth & Co, 1902, p92

Along with Julius Haast and James Hector, Hutton started his scientific career with the New Zealand Geological Survey, joining the burgeoning ranks of New Zealand’s first professional scientists.

Hutton had emigrated from England to New Zealand in 1866 with his young family. During his time as a captain in the British Army he had taken a keen interest in geology – which he had studied in London – and in New Zealand he soon joined the young Geological Survey (run by James Hector). In 1874, after fieldwork throughout the country, Hutton became Otago provincial geologist. As well as producing a geological map of the province, Hutton reported on the economics of the Otago goldfields and provided systematic observations of a number of shells, both fossils and existing species.

As well as carrying out fieldwork in Otago, Hutton lectured in geology and zoology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, becoming professor of natural science in 1877. At the same time, as curator of the Otago Museum, he supervised the assembly of much of the Museum’s natural history collection. In 1880, Hutton became professor of biology at Canterbury College in Christchurch where he taught zoology, geology and palaeontology. Following Haast’s death in 1887, Hutton became curator of the Canterbury Museum.

Though primarily employed as a geologist, Hutton’s scientific interests were wide-ranging. He published catalogues of New Zealand birds, fish and marine molluscs, and articles on bats and lizards. His books included the Manual of the New Zealand Mollusca (1880) and Index Faunae Novae Zealandiae (1904).

Hutton was an outspoken man and fond of an argument. In the 1870s, he joined the debate over recently discovered moa bones, arguing against Haast’s claims that an ancient pre-Māori civilisation had hunted the moa to extinction.  His most controversial stance, however, was his progressive view on evolution. He spoke and published widely on the subject, bringing him particular grief from the Presbyterian Church, which declined to fund his professorship at the University of Otago.

Many of Hutton’s type specimens – fossil shells which he discovered, described and named – are now held at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and at GNS Science.  

By Rebecca Priestley

Medals and awards

FGS 1860, FRS 1892

Further reading

Frederick Wollaston Hutton - Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website

149 articles written by Hutton, published in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, are available online:

Articles by Frederick Hutton – Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand website

FW Hutton (ed), Index faunæ Novæ Zealandiæ, published for the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, New Zealand by Dulau, 1904

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga O Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image

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