Waterhouse Notebooks

Extracts from two notebooks kept by Frederick George Waterhouse, naturalist to the Stuart Expedition (1861-1862).

Frederick George Waterhouse, first curator of the South Australian Museum, was born near London on 25 August 1815 to James Edward Waterhouse and his wife Mary, née Newman. He performed many roles throughout his working life, including naturalist, entomologist and zoologist and for a brief period, gold miner.

As a young man he worked at the British Museum with his elder brother George, an eminent entomologist and zoologist. Frederick Waterhouse sailed for South Australia in the Sydney on 7 July 1852, shortly after his marriage to Fanny Shepherd Abbott. Initially, Waterhouse made an unsuccessful atttempt at gold mining on the Victorian goldfields. He also worked as a surveyor in the Adelaide Hills with C. T. Hargrave. In October 1860 he became the first curator of the South Australian Institute Museum which opened some time later, in January 1862.

Waterhouse was a passionate collector of Australia's fauna. On 5 December 1861 he set out as government appointed naturalist with John McDouall Stuart's sixth expedition, north across the Australian continent. Stuart's earlier expeditions had been privately sponsored by the Chambers brothers but his fifth and sixth expeditions were financed largely by the South Australian government anxious for Stuart to beat the Victorian Burke and Wills expedition to the north coast of Australia, and thereby pioneering a route for the Overland Telegraph Line. The north coast was reached on 25 July 1862 at the mouth of the Mary River on the Arnhem Land coast and the return journey commenced shortly afterwards.

Waterhouse kept detailed notebooks of the journey. Despite a disagreement with Stuart and the loss of valuable instruments, he returned to Adelaide in 1863 with some excellent plant, bird, mammal and insect specimens including the first collection of the rare Princess Alexandra Parrot, Polytelis alexandrae. His enthusiasm and scientific zeal irritated Stuart but other members of the group found him congenial and praised his unselfishness. He received a government bonus of 100 pounds and reported his observations to the Commissioner of Crown Lands.

From 1859 Waterhouse was a a member of the Adelaide Philosophical (Royal) Society, becoming its vice-president in 1869 and contributing several scientific papers and articles. Among these were 'On a remarkable insect Stylops'; 'Observations on the Palaeontology of Australia; and 'Entomology' He contributed pieces to a number of publications about South Australia's flora and fauna, including a fifteen page treatise entitled, 'Fauna of South Australia' for William Harcus's South Australia: Its History, Resources, and Productions.

In 1882 Frederick Waterhouse resigned his position at the museum and returned to England for eight months. He then came back to South Australia where he resided in the Adelaide suburb of Burnside. In 1897 he moved to Jamestown in the mid-north to live with one of his sons. He died on 7 September 1898 and was buried in St George's Anglican cemetery, Magill. The Waterhouse family included five sons and a daughter. A river in the Northern Territory, several natural history species and the annual Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize commemorate his name.

This item is reproduced courtesy of Mr Adrian C Thomas. It may be printed or saved for research or study. Use for any other purpose requires written permission from Mr Adrian C Thomas. To request approval, complete the Quote for Copy/Permission form.