Thomas Wrench Naylor Beckett (24 July 1839 Liverpool - 5 December 1906 "Elbedde", Fendalton) was an English-born coffee and tea planter in Ceylon, and was also a noted botanist and bryologist, who collected there and in the north-western Himalaya between 1882 and c1900. He did not publish any account of the mosses he collected while in Ceylon - many of his specimens though are recorded in Max Fleischer's "Musci der Flora von Buitenzorg". He emigrated to New Zealand where he also collected. His main pteridophyte collection is at World Museum Liverpool. His bryophyte material at Kew was transferred to the British Museum of Natural History in about 1961 in terms of the Morton Agreement. The University of Canterbury and Christchurch houses some 12 000 of his specimens. Beckett was one of three amateur bryologists active in Christchurch, the other two being Robert Brown (1824-1906) and Thomas George Wright (1831-1914). [1] [2]
Liverpool is a city in North West England, with an estimated population of 491,500 in 2017. Its metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in the UK, with a population of 2.24 million in 2011. The local authority is Liverpool City Council, the most populous local government district in the metropolitan county of Merseyside and the largest in the Liverpool City Region.
Fendalton is a suburb of Christchurch, in the South Island of New Zealand.
Richard Paul Max Fleischer was a German painter and bryologist. As a botanist, he is remembered for his work with Javan mosses.
Beckett was married to Sarah Tolson Clint (1838 - 8 June 1921) and had children. His son, Alfred Charles, died on the island at four and a half years old on 24 December 1878. When their crops also failed, the family relocated to New Zealand and settled in Fendalton in 1884, where Beckett worked as an orchardist. A Fellow of the Linnean Society and a member of the Canterbury Philosophical Institute, Beckett was well known in scientific circles throughout the world. The study of mosses and lichens was his main field of interest, and he left behind a valuable collection of New Zealand and foreign mosses. When Beckett first settled in Christchurch he corresponded with several local botanists, including Thomas George Wright, requesting information on matters bryological in the country, and offering to exchange specimens. Beckett kept all the replies, and these together with his botanical correspondence, local and overseas, was kept by the Canterbury Museum. His favourite collecting sites for mosses were in the Port Hills and the foothills. [3] [4] There were plants from New Zealand, Nepal, Sri Lanka, South Africa and French Polynesia in his collection. [5] [6]
The Canterbury Museum is a museum located in the central city of Christchurch, New Zealand, in the city's Cultural Precinct. The museum was established in 1867 with Julius von Haast – whose collection formed its core – as its first director. The building is registered as a "Historic Place – Category I " by Heritage New Zealand.
The Port Hills are a range of hills in Canterbury, New Zealand, so named because they lie between the city of Christchurch and its port at Lyttelton. They are an eroded remnant of the Lyttelton volcano, which erupted millions of years ago.
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is located mainly in the Himalayas but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. With an estimated population of 26.4 million, it is 48th largest country by population and 93rd largest country by area. It borders China in the north and India in the south, east, and west while Bangladesh is located within only 27 km (17 mi) of its southeastern tip and Bhutan is separated from it by the Indian state of Sikkim. Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the world's ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and largest city. Nepal is a multiethnic nation with Nepali as the official language.
Beckett took a great interest in primary school education, and was chairman of the Fendalton School Committee. He was a serious churchman, being closely associated with St. Barnabas’ Church for more than 20 years, and being a churchwarden for 17 years. In 1896 he was placed in charge of the construction of the Sunday School building on glebe land in Clyde Road. At his death, from influenza which developed into pneumonia, Beckett was one of the oldest and most respected residents of the area, and was buried in the graveyard at St Paul's Anglican Church, Papanui. With Beckett are buried his wife Sarah, and his unmarried daughters, Mary Ethel (1871-1947) and Amy Middleton (1876-1964). The gravestone inscription also commemorates Alfred Charles Beckett. A window of St. Barnabas’ Church is dedicated to the memory of Thomas Wrench Naylor Beckett, while a lamp in the church grounds is dedicated to the Beckett's son, Thomas Herbert Beckett, who was vestryman, church warden, choir member and synodsman of the Church. [7] [8]
St Paul's Anglican Church is a Category II listed heritage building in the Christchurch, New Zealand suburb of Papanui.
Children:
- Beckett, Thomas Herbert 1870
- Beckett, Mary Ethel 1871
- Beckett, Alfred Charles 1874
- Beckett, Amy Middleton 1876
- Beckett, Frederick Percy
