Gregory Macalister Mathews

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

FZS FLS (10 September 1876 – 27 March 1949) was an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n-born amateur

ornithologist Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

who spent most of his later life in

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Life

He was born in Biamble in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

the son of Robert H. Mathews. He was educated at

The King's School, Parramatta The King's School is an Education in Australia#Non-government schools, independent Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican, Pre-school education, early learning, primary school, primary and secondary school, secondary day and boarding school, bo ...

. Mathews made his fortune in

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

shares and moved to

in 1902. In 1910, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were

William Eagle Clarke Dr William Eagle Clarke ISO FLS FRSE PBOU Doctor of Laws, LL.D. (16 March 1853 – 10 May 1938) was a British ornithologist. Life Clarke was born in Leeds where his father William Clarke was a solicitor and educated at the Grammar School and at ...

Ramsay Heatley Traquair Ramsay Heatley Traquair FRSE FRS (30 July 1840 – 22 November 1912) was a Scottish naturalist and palaeontologist who became a leading expert on fossil fish. Traquair trained as a medical doctor, but his thesis was on aspects of fish anatomy ...

John Alexander Harvie-Brown John Alexander Harvie-Brown (27 August 1844 – 26 July 1916) was a Scottish ornithologist and naturalist. Biography Harvie-Brown was born near Larbert in central Scotland, the only son of John Harvie-Brown and his wife, Elizabeth Spottiswoode ...

and William Evans.

Ornithology

Mathews was a controversial figure in Australian ornithology. He was responsible for bringing

trinomial nomenclature In biology, trinomial nomenclature is the system of names for taxa below the rank of species. These names have three parts. The usage is different in zoology and botany. In zoology In zoological nomenclature, a trinomen (), trinominal name, or ...

into local taxonomy, however he was regarded as an extreme splitter. He recognised large numbers of subspecies on scant evidence and few notes. The extinct Lord Howe Pigeon was described by Mathews in 1915, using a painting as a guide. At the time, he named it ''Raperia godmanae'' after Alice Mary Godman. His approach drew a hostile response from

Archibald James Campbell Archibald James Campbell (18 February 1853 – 11 September 1929) was an Australian civil servant in the Victorian (later Australian) government Customs Service. However, his international reputation rests on his expertise as an amateur ornit ...

, a leading Australian figure in ornithology at the time. He later began splitting genera.

Dominic Serventy Dominic Louis Serventy (28 March 1904 – 8 August 1988) was an Australian ornithologist. He was president of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) 1947–1949. He assisted with the initial organisation of the British Museum ...

foretold that although a great many of these subspecies ceased to be recognised, future research would have to resort to the use of some of them if and when evidence supported their distinct status. He was Chairman of the

British Ornithologists' Club The British Ornithologists' Club (BOC) aims to promote discussion between members and others interested in ornithology, and to facilitate the dissemination of scientific information concerned with ornithology. The BOC has a special interest in avi ...

from 1935 to 1938.Bull. B.O.C. Vol. 58 He was made CBE in 1939 for his services to ornithology.Bull. B.O.C. Vol. 59 Mathews described ''Malurus splendens musgravei'', currently recognised as a subspecies of the

splendid fairywren The splendid fairywren (''Malurus splendens'') is a passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is also known simply as the splendid wren or more colloquially in Western Australia as the blue wren. The splendid fairywren is fo ...

, in 1922, as a new species of bird. In 1939, he was elected a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), now part of BirdLife Australia, was Australia's largest non-government, non-profit, bird conservation organisation. It was founded in 1901 to promote the study and conservation of the native b ...

and served as its president from 1946–1947. Mathews built up a collection of 30,000 bird skins and a library of 5,000 books on ornithology. He donated his ornithological library to the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

in 1939. In 1939, Matthews donated a small collection of Aboriginal ethnographic items from Australia to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

.British Museum collection
/ref>

Family

He married Mrs Marian Wynne, a widow. He died in

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

on 27 March 1949.

Publications

Mathews contributed numerous papers to the ornithological literature, especially on avian

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

and

nomenclature Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. (The theoretical field studying nomenclature is sometimes referred to as ''onymology'' or ''taxonymy'' ). The principl ...

, as well as founding, funding, editing and being the principal contributor to the

journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of personal secretive thoughts and as open book to personal therapy or used to feel connected to onesel ...

The Austral Avian Record ''The Austral Avian Record'', with the subtitle ''a scientific journal devoted primarily to the study of the Australian avifauna'', was an occasional journal produced in five volumes between 1912 and 1927. It was founded, funded and edited by Au ...

''. Monographic or book-length works authored or coauthored by him include: * 1908 – ''The Handlist of the Birds of Australia''. (Based on ''A Handlist of Birds'' by Bowdler Sharpe). * 1910–1927 – '' The Birds of Australia'' Witherby: London. (12 volumes, assisted by

Tom Iredale Tom Iredale (24 March 1880 – 12 April 1972) was an English-born ornithologist and malacologist who had a long association with Australia, where he lived for most of his life. He was an Autodidacticism, autodidact who never went to university ...

). * 1912 – ''The Reference List of the Birds of Australia''. (''Novitates Zoologicae'', 18 January 1912). * 1913 – ''A List of the Birds of Australia''. Witherby: London. * 1920 – ''The Name List of the Birds of Australia''. * 1921 – ''A Manual of the Birds of Australia. Volume I: Orders Casuarii to Columbae''. Witherby: London. (With Tom Iredale. Only one volume published of a projected four). * 1924 – ''The Check-List of the Birds of Australia''. Witherby: London. (Comprising Supplements 1-3 of ''The Birds of Australia''). * 1925 – ''The Bibliography of the Birds of Australia''. Witherby: London. (Comprising Supplements 4 and 5 of ''The Birds of Australia''). * 1927 – ''Systema Avium Australasianarum. a Systematic List of the Birds of the Australasian Region''. BOU: London. (2 volumes). * 1928 – ''The Birds of Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands and the Australian South Polar Quadrant''. Witherby: London. * 1931 – ''A List of the Birds of Australasia, Including New Zealand, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, and the Australasian Antarctic Quadrant''. * 1936 – ''A Supplement to the Birds of Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands to which is Added those Birds of New Zealand not figured by Buller''. Witherby: London. * 1942 – ''Birds and Books: the Story of the Mathews Ornithological Library''. Verity Hewitt Bookshop: Canberra. * 1943 – ''Notes on the Order Procellariiformes''. (With

Edward Hallstrom Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom (25 September 1886 – 27 February 1970) was one of Australia's best-known philanthropists and businessmen of the mid 20th century. Hallstrom is best known for his long association with the Taronga Zoo and for hi ...

). * 1946 – ''A Working List of Australian Birds, including the Australian Quadrant and New Zealand''. Shepherd Press: Sydney.

References

* Robin, Libby. (2001). ''The Flight of the Emu: a hundred years of Australian ornithology 1901-2001''. Carlton, Vic. Melbourne University Press.

External links

Find G.M. Mathews in Libraries Australia
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Illustrations from ''The birds of Australia''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathews, Gregory 1876 births 1949 deaths Australian ornithologists Australian nature writers Taxon authorities Australian book and manuscript collectors Australian emigrants to the United Kingdom People educated at The King's School, Parramatta Fellows_of_the_Zoological_Society_of_London Commanders_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire