First professional scientists
Thomas Kirk & Thomas Frederick Cheeseman
Thomas Cheeseman, ca 1910s, Sir Charles Fleming Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference: F-55792-1/2
Thomas Kirk & Thomas Frederick Cheeseman
The whau-whi, or "lace-bark" as it is usually termed by settlers, is one of the most graceful and beautiful flowering trees in the New Zealand flora: its large white flowers, nearly an inch in diameter, are produced in vast profusion, and harmonize beautifully with the foliage, which is at once soft in character and bold in outline: it has an additional attraction, for it is one of the few New Zealand trees which are truly deciduous, and exhibits vivid autumnal tints, mostly of soft-yellow shades, which afford a fine contrast with the deep green of the mountain-beech and other trees by which it is usually surrounded.
Thomas Kirk’s introduction to description of Plagianthus lyallii (whauwhi), in The Forest Flora of New Zealand, George Didsbury, Government Printer, 1889, p279
English immigrants Thomas Kirk and Thomas Cheeseman were both passionate about New Zealand flora and each became secretary of the Auckland Institute and curator of its museum – Kirk in 1868 and Cheeseman in 1874.
Cheeseman arrived in Auckland as an infant in 1845, and went to school in Parnell and Tamaki, where he began collecting native plants. He sent a native orchid to Sir Joseph Hooker at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew in 1867, and Hooker named the species Corysanthes cheesemanii. Charles Darwin also acknowledged Cheeseman’s orchid observations in one of his publications.
Cheeseman educated himself from Hooker’s two-part Handbook of the New Zealand Flora, and in the field, so that when Auckland University College opened in 1883, he was a recognised botanist. More than 60 of Cheeseman’s botanical papers were published in New Zealand journals, with the large Manual of the New Zealand Flora, published in 1906, his magnum opus.
In his role managing the high quality natural history collections at the Auckland Institute and Museum, Cheeseman recognised the need to preserve and exhibit early Māori artefacts.
Thomas Kirk, who began his working life in an English plant nursery, began collecting New Zealand plants on his arrival in 1863, and prepared a plant collection for the Dunedin Exhibition of 1865. In Auckland, he taught botany at Auckland College and Grammar School, was appointed the city’s meteorological observer, and, in 1868, preceeded Cheeseman as secretary of the Auckland Institute and curator of its museum.
In 1874, Kirk moved south to lecture in natural sciences at Wellington College until 1880, when the College’s affiliation with the University of New Zealand ended. The following year, he became lecturer in biology and geology at Lincoln School of Agriculture near Christchurch. Appointed chief conservator of forests in 1885, Kirk organised the forest and agriculture branch of the Crown Lands Department, with his regulations greatly reducing the wasteful use of indigenous forest – by 1888, some 800,000 acres were allocated as forest reserves.
Kirk contributed more than 130 papers on botanical discoveries to New Zealand and British journals. His most significant book, The Forest Flora of New Zealand, was published in 1889, followed by Students’ Flora of New Zealand, soon after his death in 1898. These important books, along with his 1875 Report on the Durability of New Zealand Timbers, are Thomas Kirk’s legacy. Thomas Cheeseman led the Auckland Institute and Museum for nearly 50 years, and recommended the building of Auckland Museum as a war memorial; its Cheeseman Herbarium, containing more than 10,000 dried plants, is a memorial to Cheeseman himself.
By Rebecca Priestley
Medals and awards
Thomas Cheeseman: FLS, FNZI, Hector Medal 1918, Linnean Society Gold Medal 1923, FZS
Thomas Kirk: FLS 1871
Further reading
Thomas Kirk biography – Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website
Thomas Frederick Cheeseman biography – Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website
81 articles written by Cheeseman, published in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, are available online:
More than 120 articles by Kirk, published in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, are available online:
Articles by Thomas Kirk – Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand website
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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