Tom Iredale

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Tom Iredale (March 24, 1880 – April 12, 1972) was an English-born ornithologist and malacologist born at Stainburn, Workington, Cumberland, who had a long association with Australia where he lived for most of his life.

He was apprenticed to a pharmacist from 1899 to 1901 and used to go bird watching and egg collecting in the Lake District with fellow chemist William Carruthers Lawrie.

He went on a sea voyage for his health (possibly he had tuberculosis) and, according to a letter to Will Lawrie dated 25 January 1902, arrived in Wellington, New Zealand in December 1901, travelling at once on to Lyttelton and Christchurch. On his second day in Christchurch he discovered that in the Foreign Natural History Gallery of the Museum and Public Library, 2 of 16 English birds' eggs were wrongly identified - Red Grouse egg labelled as Sandpiper and Moorhen labelled Water Rail.

He became a clerk in a New Zealand company at Christchurch (1902-1907). Around 1906 he married Alice Maud Atkinson in New Zealand and they had one child, Ida.

He was an autodidact and never went to university, thus lacking formal university training. This showed up in his later work. He never revised his manuscripts and never used a typewriter.

In 1908 he joined an expedition to the Kermadec Islands and lived for ten months on the remote islands northeast of New Zealand. Living among and studying thousands of birds, he became a bird expert. He survived by shooting and eating the objects of his study. He also collected molluscs on the island and developed an interest in malacology. As a keen naturalist in those times, he already had a broad interest in nature but this marked a new turn in his career.

In 1909 he visited Queensland, Australia, collecting about 300 species of chitons and other molluscs. His reputation among his peers was growing, even though he had no university degree.

He returned to Britain to become a freelance worker at the British Museum of Natural History in London (1909-1910). There he worked as the assistant of Gregory Mathews on the book Birds of Australia (1911-1923). He wrote much of the text, but the work was credited to Mathews.

He continued his work in natural history under the patronage of wealthy naturalists, such as Charles Rothschild, for whom he travelled to Hungary to collect fleas from birds. He married Lilian Marguerite Medland (1880-1955) on 8 June 1923. She would illustrate several of his books and become one of Australia's finest bird artists.

Iredale returned to Australia in 1923 and was elected a member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in the same year. He was a RAOU Councillor for New South Wales in 1926, and served on the RAOU Migration Committee 1925-1932.

He took up a position as a conchologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney (1924-1944). He worked tirelessly on publications on shells, birds, ecology and zoogeography. He lectured frequently and wrote many popular scientific articles in newspapers. Due to his efforts (and those of later curators), the Mollusc Section at the Australian Museum maintains now the largest research collection of molluscs in the Southern Hemisphere with over 6,000 specimens. He was an Honorary Associate from his retirement in 1944 until his death.

Many species and several genera in conchology, ichthyology and ornithology were named after him, such as

• Cryptoplax iredalei E. Ashby, 1923

He was a Fellow, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales 1931; Clarke Medal, Royal Society of New South Wales 1959; President, Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales 1937-38.

Selected works

• Iredale, T., 'Solander as an Ornithologist', Ibis, 1913, pp. 127-135
• Iredale, T., 'John Brazier 1842-1930', Nautilus, vol. 44, 1931
• Iredale, T., 'J. R. and G. Forster, Naturalists', Emu, vol. 37, 1937, pp. 95-99
• Iredale, T. 1940. Book review. The fishes of Australia. Part I by G. P. Whitley. Proceedings of the RZS of NSW 1939-40: 41.
• Iredale, T. 1941. Book review. The molluscs of South Australia. Part II by B. C. Cotton & F. K. Godfrey. Proceedings of the RZS of NSW 1940-41: 35.
• Iredale, T. 1942. Book review. Australian Insects. An introductory handbook by Keith C. McKeown. Proceedings of the RZS of NSW 1941-42: 33-34.
• Iredale, T. 1947. Book review. Gliders of the gum trees. The most beautiful and enchanting Australian marsupials by David Fleay. Proceedings of the RZS of NSW 1947-47: 5.
• Iredale, T. 1951. Book review. Australian shells by Joyce Allan. Proceedings of the RZS of NSW 1949-50: 73-74.
• Iredale, T. 1958. Book review. Cowry Shells of World Seas by Joyce Allan. Proceedings of the RZS of NSW 1956-57: 95-96.
• Birds of Paradise and Bower Birds (1950)
• Birds of New Guinea, 1956 (Vol.1, 2), Illustrated with 35 plates in colour figuring 347 birds by Lilian Medland
• Iredale, T., 'John (William) Brazier', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, 1956, p. 105
• Iredale, T., 'Broinowski's Birds and Mammals of Australia', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, 1956
• Iredale, T., 'Scientific Societies in Australia. The Sydney University Chemical Society', The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Proceedings, vol. 27, 1960, pp. 216-217
• Iredale, T. and Whitley, G.P., 'Sir William Dennison as a Conchologist', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, 1964, pp. 27-30
• Iredale, T., 'Charles Hedley', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, vol. 88, 1967, pp. 26-31

References

• Chisholm, A.H.; & Serventy, D.L. (1973). Obituary: Tom Iredale. A scientific appraisal. Emu 73: 74-78.
• McMichael, D. F.; & Whitley, G. P. 1956. The published writing of Tom Iredale with an index of his new scientific names. Australian Zoologist 12: 211-250.
• Ponder, W.F.; & Whitley, G.P. (1972). Tom Iredale (1880–1972) [an obituary]: 60–62 The Nautilus 68, December 1972