Albert Frederick Calvert (1872-1946) was an English author, engineer and explorer active in Australia.
Albert Frederick Calvert (1872-1946) was an English author, engineer and explorer active in Australia.
Calvert's place and date of birth are uncertain. His mother was Grace Calvert, née Easley, and father a mining engineer John Frederick Calvert. [1] His younger brother Leonard had joined his party travelling to Western Australia, but became ill and died at Roebourne while Albert was journeying to the interior.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography (1979) noted he was born on 20 July 1872 at Kentish Town, Middlesex, England, son of Frederick Calvert, mining engineer, and his wife Grace. [2]
Calvert travelled to Western Australia with a party of servants and staff, preparing to tour the frontier as a well equipped member of the English gentry. [3] Calvert visited the remote Murchison region of Australia in 1890, exploring the area around Lake Gairdner. He returned to the region 1891 to continue his explorations and recorded a bird he called the "Spinifex Paraquet". Calvert reported that his specimen was lost, but an illustration of the discovery by George Edward Lodge was included in his 1894 publication Western Australia: its history and progress While some authorities have interpreted that as an encounter with the elusive night parrot, Pezoporus occidentalis , the species is likely to have been the scarlet-chested Neophema splendida . [4]
After returning to England, where he published West Australian Review (1893–94) and promoted interest in the western regions of Australia, he financed and gave his name to the Calvert expedition. Calvert remained in England, where he engaged in costly pursuits of car and yacht sports and involved in horse racing. The outcome of expedition resulted in the successful crossing of the extreme environment at the Great Sandy Desert and the collection of specimens for scientific examination. As with many before and after, they unsuccessfully searched for evidence of the expedition led by Ludwig Leichhardt that had disappeared while crossing Australia's arid centre. Two men died on the Calvert expedition, along with other losses and deprivations, and when Calvert did not provide the funds for the expedition's costs he was publicly denounced. Further expeditions were instigated by the mining engineer, he later provided consultation to mining ventures at Mallina and temporarily placed as managing director of Big Blow Gold Mines and Consolidated Gold Mines of Western Australia. [5]
Calvert was the author of fourteen books on Australia. [6] They included superficial treatments of subjects such as minerals, pearls and the indigenous inhabitants, and later wrote thirty six books on Africa and Spain (including all the volumes in The Spanish Series published by John Lane, The Bodley Head). [7] His last work is described as an unreliable account on the topic of Freemasonry. [5]
1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1872nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 872nd year of the 2nd millennium, the 72nd year of the 19th century, and the 3rd year of the 1870s decade. As of the start of 1872, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
William Dampier was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between Francis Drake and James Cook, he "bridged those two eras" with a mix of piratical derring-do of the former and scientific inquiry of the latter. His expeditions were among the first to identify and name a number of plants, animals, foods, and cooking techniques for a European audience; being among the first English writers to use words such as avocado, barbecue, and chopsticks. In describing the preparation of avocados, he was the first European to describe the making of guacamole, named the breadfruit plant, and made frequent documentation of the taste of numerous foods foreign to the European palate such as flamingo and manatee.
Alfred Edward Morgans was the fourth Premier of Western Australia, serving for just over a month, from 21 November to 23 December 1901.
George Frederick Bodley was an English Gothic Revival architect. He was a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and worked in partnership with Thomas Garner for much of his career. He was one of the founders of Watts & Co.
The night parrot is a small parrot endemic to the continent of Australia. It has also been known as porcupine parrot, nocturnal ground parakeet, midnight cockatoo, solitaire, spinifex parrot and night parakeet. It is one of the most elusive and mysterious birds in the world, with no confirmed sightings of the bird between 1912 and 1979, leading to speculation that it was extinct. Sightings since 1979 have been extremely rare and the bird's population size is unknown, though based on the paucity of records it is thought to number between 50 and 249 mature individuals, and it is classified by the IUCN as an endangered species.
John Gilbert was an English naturalist and explorer. Gilbert is often cited in the earliest descriptions of many Australian animals, many of which were unrecorded in European literature, and some of these are named for him by those authors. Gilbert was sent to the newly founded Swan River Colony and made collections and notes on the unique birds and mammals of the surrounding region. He later joined expeditions to remote parts the country, continuing to make records and collections until he was killed during a violent altercation at Mitchell River (Queensland) on the Cape York Peninsula.
Talke is a village in the civil parish of Kidsgrove, in the Newcastle-under-Lyme district, in Staffordshire, England. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of Newcastle-under-Lyme and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southwest of Kidsgrove.
Caroline Louisa Waring Calvert was an early Australian writer, botanist and illustrator. While she was well known for her fiction during her lifetime, her long-term significance rests on her botanical work. She is regarded as a ground-breaker for Australian women in journalism and natural science, and is significant in her time for her sympathetic references to Aboriginal Australians in her writings and her encouragement of conservation.
Events from the year 1872 in the United Kingdom.
Lawrence Allen "Larry" Wells, frequently spelled Laurence Allen Wells, was an Australian explorer.
Frederick George Waterhouse was an English naturalist, zoologist and entomologist who made significant contributions to the study of the natural history of Australia.
Alfred Darbyshire was a British architect.
Albert Kellogg was an American physician and the first resident botanist of California. He was a founding member of the California Academy of Sciences and served as its first curator of botany. Kellogg was a prolific writer and an accomplished illustrator of botanical specimens. In 1882, he published "The Forest Trees of California", the first scientific account of the state's diverse forest species.
Henry Stacy Marks was a British artist who took a particular interest in Shakespearean and medieval themes in his early career and later in decorative art depicting birds and ornithologists as well as landscapes. Most of his early works were oils but he also worked on murals and with watercolours. He was a founding member of the St John's Wood Clique and was well known for his humorous performances.
Arthur Charles Jeston Richardson, was an Australian cyclist and mining engineer, who became the first person to circumnavigate the continent of Australia on a bicycle.
The Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition took place in central and northern Western Australia in 1896 and 1897, using camels as the principal means of transport.
Wixenford School, also known as Wixenford Preparatory School and Wixenford-Eversley, was a private preparatory school for boys near Wokingham, founded in 1869. A feeder school for Eton, after it closed in 1934 its former buildings were taken over by the present-day Ludgrove School.
James Snowden Calvert, was an explorer and botanist, active in colonial Australia.
Frederick Bulstrode Lawson Whitlock (1860-1953) was an ornithological writer and oölogist, active in England and across Western Australia.
Frederick Strange was a collector of plant and animal specimens during the early colonisation of Australia.
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