Historical Records of Australian Science

Grain production in the early years of colonisation in Australia was hampered by poor farming practices, lack of livestock, and belligerent, unenthusiastic convict labour. In 1803, just when the situation began to improve, stem rust of wheat was discovered by the exiled Irish rebel ‘General’ Joseph Holt on Brush Farm, owned by Captain William Cox. The disease, which has remained a threat to wheat production ever since, found its way into ironic Australian literature, including Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie letter. Photograph from an original picture in the possession of Sir William Bentham painted in 1798, Day & Haghe lithrs. to the Queen, Trove, https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22823177. Accessed August 2021.

Darnell-Smith developed a dry treatment for controlling the hitherto severe wheat disease common bunt. His groundbreaking work was done during the First World War in field experiments at Wagga Wagga and Cowra and widely reported in Australian newspapers. The treatment with copper carbonate dust was highly effective and simpler to apply than the previously used ‘wet pickles’. Despite this, uptake by farmers was slow until popularised in America so that by 1930 bunt had become a rarely seen disease. Photography by Dr Jordan Bailey.

Among the fungi recorded in a paper published in the 1880 Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales was Sphaerella destructiva, now Pseudopeziza medicaginis, the cause of common leaf spot of lucerne. The paper, co-authored by the naturalist Reverend Julian Tenison-Woods and the Queensland Government Botanist Frederick Manson Bailey was the first known comprehensive list of Australian fungi published by Australian residents. It is a milestone in the evolution of mycology and plant pathology studies in Australia. Photograph by H. H. Baily.

The wattles (Acacia species) are an ancient and iconic Australian genus of trees and shrubs which form part of the identity of the nation. Galls were a common feature on wattle trees, initially being attributed to the activity of some insects, but later a genus of rust fungi, Uromycladium, was found to also cause galls. The lives of two of the early collectors of wattle rust galls, Otto Tepper and Charles Brittlebank, are also illuminated in this paper. Photograph by Alastair McTaggart.

In the early 1890s a serious mystery disease appeared in pineapple plantations around Brisbane, Queensland. The American-born Professor Edward Shelton, Queensland’s first instructor in agriculture, Henry Tryon, assistant curator at the Queensland Museum, and others inspected diseased plants and concluded that the disease was caused by a fungus, later identified as the oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi. Shelton went on to become the first principal of the Gatton Agricultural College, but was forced to resign after severely disciplining some of the students. Photograph by an unknown person.

In 1894, the Queensland government entomologist, and later vegetable pathologist, Henry Tryon (1856–1943) discovered a new disease that caused potato tubers to become rotted and putrid. He consistently found bacterial cells in a thick mucilaginous gum in the vascular tissues of wilted stems and infected tubers, and gave it the name Bacillus vascularum solani. The American bacteriologist Erwin Frink Smith would not accept Tryon’s discovery, instead naming the causal agent Pseudomonas solanacearum. That bacterium, now called Ralstonia solanacearum is a significant plant pathogen worldwide. Photograph by an unknown person.

At the start of the decade of 1890, sugarcane growers in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales began to notice a serious disease affecting their crops. American-born Nathan Cobb, who was the New South Wales Government Vegetable Pathologist, discovered that a bacterium, now known as Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vasculorum, was the cause of the disease. Although others were not convinced that Cobb had conclusively proved that the bacterium was the causal agent, it was for many years known as ‘Cobb’s gumming disease of cane’.

Within the first forty years of English colonisation of Australia, the climate of Queensland proved to be the ideal place for the commercial production of bananas. It was in the south-eastern corner of the state that a new disease of banana (now called Fusarium Wilt) was identified by a Brisbane physician, Dr. Joseph Bancroft, in the early 1870s. The disease was given the name ‘Panama disease’, despite the fact that it was not discovered in Panama until twenty years later. Photograph by Andre Drenth.

Banana bunchy top disease is the most serious viral disease of bananas in the world, and nearly wiped out the Australian banana industry in the early twentieth century. The impacts of the disease epidemic were hardest felt by veterans of World War 1, who moved to the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales to create a subtropical fruit industry as part of the Soldier Settlement Scheme. This article describes the early history of the Australian banana industry, the introduction and spread of bunchy top disease, and efforts to develop a disease management plan. Photograph by Scot C. Nelson, University of Hawaiʻi.

This article belongs to the Special Issue: History of Plant Pathology in Australasia.

Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is one of the most economically important viruses in the world. Before it became a global problem, it devastated tomato crops in Australia. This paper describes how TSWV was identified and biologically characterised by Australian scientists at a time when few techniques existed to detect the virus. It is a remarkable story of human endeavour by a small team of people working in academic isolation.

Rupert Jethro Best, working alone in Adelaide at the Waite Agricultural Research Institute, was among the first to purify tobacco mosaic virus and to provide evidence that it was a heterogeneous macromolecule, composed mainly of protein but also small prosthetic groups with the properties of a weak acid, wherein lay the activity of the virus. This paper describes the contributions of Rupert Best to early theories on the material nature and mode of reproduction of viruses. Photographer unknown, State Library of South Australia.

A chance discovery in alpine Australia in 1980 led to the discovery of a virus in a remote and rare species of plant. The virus has clear connections with a virus in the Northern Hemisphere. The way we study plant virology has changed over the intervening years but the mystery as to how the virus got there remains. Photograph by: PL Guy 2004.

Late blight, ultimately shown to be caused by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, devastated potato crops in Ireland and other countries in Europe during the mid-late 1840s. In 1909 the disease was positively identified in Australia by the Queensland Vegetable Pathologist, Henry Tryon, who had compelling evidence that the source of the disease outbreaks was planting tubers from Tasmania. Growers and authorities in that state refused to believe the accusation but were soon proved wrong. Image credit: J. M. Berkeley (1846).

This is the story of how the Australian Government has been protecting Australia’s remote northern coastline from biosecurity invasions from neighbouring countries. It is a story of boots on the ground plant health surveillance across Australia’s north and also over the horizon, in the countries that lie so close to our northern shore. Key to success has been collaborative field work overseas, with biosecurity scientists of Indonesia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Photograph by Kerry Trapnell.

Gretna Weste was a woman plant pathologist who pioneered research on dieback, a devastating new disease of forests in southern Australia, in the late twentieth century. Weste’s research was foundational in the recognition of dieback disease as a Key Threatening Process for Australia’s natural biodiversity in 2000. Her career illustrates the significant gender-based obstacles faced by women scientists in Australia, and the stoic strength demonstrated by Weste. Photographer unknown.

Robert (Bob) Crompton, a towering figure in low energy electron and ion physics in Australia, passed away in June 2022. He was known internationally for his seminal publications on swarm physics, atomic and molecular physics and gaseous electronics, and for his widely-read monograph with Sir Leonard Huxley on the subject of charged-particle transport. He was the recipient of many personal and professional accolades and awards for his contributions to science, science policy and the general community. Although born and educated in Adelaide, Crompton spent the majority of his long career at the Australian National University in Canberra in the Research School of Physics and Engineering

Warning: This article discusses blood collecting in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It also contains the image of an unnamed Aboriginal man who may be deceased.

It is not without justification that the collecting of blood for genetic analysis is frequently associated with race science, but it is not solely or inevitably so. This history of Robert Kirk, a British–Australian population geneticist, provides nuance to twentieth century blood science. Once problematic, Kirk’s legacy collection now returned to Indigenous control provides a promising future. Photograph: 01P-02-27, NCIG Archive, ANU, Canberra © Kirk family.

In 1966 the ‘marriage bar’ was removed for women working in the Commonwealth public service in Australia. During that year the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) was founded. We consider the changes in the diversity of astronomers working in Australia, including male/female ratios, since the formation of the ASA, and the development of gender equity strategies in astronomy. As well, we examine the experiences of Australian women astronomers and those of people from marginalised groups in astronomy. Photograph reproduced with permission from the IDEA ASA website.

Dr Ferdinand von Sommer (~1800–49) served as Western Australia’s first government geologist and had ‘Mount Sommer’, north of Perth, named after him. Ferdinand also left behind three exceptional maps of his surveying and prospecting activities (1847–8) as well as reports to the government that can be considered impressive for their time and context, even by today’s standards. His scientific endeavours are worth re-discovering. Photograph of the author is by Matt Jelonek.

Beyond helping us to identify birds, field guides sharpen our environmental awareness, deepen our connectedness to nature and foster a commitment to conservation. These facets of the field guide inspired the efforts of the leading American innovator of the genre, Roger Tory Peterson, as well as the Australian field guide authors who came under his influence in the 1950s and after. This article explains how Peterson helped shape Australian birding guides, and hence the relationship between birds and people in this country. It also recounts Peterson’s birdwatching adventures on his visits Down Under. Photograph courtesy of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute.

Australian astronomical research has changed drastically since the formation of the Astronomical Society of Australia in 1966. Here, we look at the changes in the context of the membership of the society and explore how the advent of new research facilities has led to changes in the number and geographical location of Australian astronomers. In particular, locating new radio telescopes in Western Australia has resulted in a more even spread of astronomers across the country. Photograph by Nick Lomb.

Acclimatisation—that is, the introduction of plants and animals to Australia from other parts of the world—is often seen as a nineteenth-century phenomenon. Focusing on wild bird species, this article argues, on the contrary, that acclimatisation continued well into the twentieth century. This article provides a cultural and political explanation for Australians’ belated turn against so-called ‘invasive species’ in the 1930s, ascribing this shift in attitudes to settler nationalism and xenophobia. Photograph by Alan Schmierer, via Wikimedia Commons.

Global movement of plants and plant products brings risk of pests including weeds, invertebrates, and plant pathogens. Australia’s adaptive biosecurity system continues to mitigate these risks, using plant quarantine and modern diagnostics to isolate, detect and diagnose exotic pathogens. Photograph by Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Peter Pringsheim, professor of physics at the University of Berlin, has a unique connection with Australia. His attendance at the 1914 conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Melbourne, coincided with the outbreak of World War 1, and he was interned as an enemy alien until July 1919. But with the support of key local scientists, Pringsheim used his internment to write a treatise on fluorescence and phosphorescence which established him as a world authority on this branch of atomic physics. Photograph: SP 421/4 4730 Peter Pringsheim, National Archives of Australia.

Dr Angus McEwan FAA FTSE who died on 5 September 2018, aged 81, was a renowned Australian fluid dynamicist, specialising in designing and conducting experimental studies in geophysical fluid dynamics, and providing outstanding leadership of national and international research programs in oceanography and meteorology. Image credit: Angus D. McEwan, personal communication.

David Albert Cooper AC (1949–2018) was an internationally renowned immunologist and HIV clinician who spearheaded Australia’s world-leading HIV response. In this article, his colleagues reflect on his contributions to HIV and infectious disease research, health policy, and the research institute he led for thirty-two years, the Kirby Institute.

Jeremy Pickett-Heaps was a biologist whose acute observational powers were fed by a deep fascination for how cells work; he had an affinity for the myriad diversity of algae and other protists in general and for what they could teach us about all cells. He made fundamental discoveries in plant cell division and green algal phylogeny that developed into studies on cell division in general and he mastered time-lapse micro-cinematography to document the dynamic lives of cells. The resultant movies and his enthusiastic teaching introduced many to the wonders of microscopic life. Photographer unknown.

This paper is a biographical note on the life and achievements of Professor Gavin Brown. Gavin was a distinguished mathematician who became vice chancellor of both the University of Sydney and the University of Adelaide. He made a significant contribution to his subject area and to the Australian academic scene. Source: Australian Academy of Science archives.

After graduating in medicine at the University of Queensland, completing his PhD at the Kanematsu Institute in Sydney, and postdoctoral studies in Germany, in 1966 John Atherton Young he joined the department of physiology at the University of Sydney where his research on the physiology of epithelial ducts brought him international recognition as a leader in the field. He made significant contributions to university governance and professional societies and respected as a man of great culture, a witty conversationalist, a great scientist.

Professor Anthony (Tony) George Klein AM, FAA (1935–2021) was an outstanding physicist, university teacher, leader, mentor and science communicator. We recount Tony’s life from his childhood in wartime Romania through to his extended career as a professor of physics at the University of Melbourne. The memoir describes Tony Klein’s personal qualities, his major research contributions and collaborations in the field of neutron optics and neutron interferometry and his services to the scientific community. Image courtesy of Australian Academy of Science.

Gerry Wake spent almost all his working life at the University of Sydney; beginning undergraduate studies in 1951, through an MSc and PhD in 1958 and returned after two years overseas to a Lectureship in the Biochemistry Department. His research flourished with notable discoveries being the mechanism of stabilisation of casein micelles, the circular nature of the Bacillus subtilis chromosome and bidirectionality of its replication. A professor from 1977 to 1999, he influenced a generation of biochemists with many former research students having remarkable scientific careers. Wake family photograph.