Biographical entry Cleland, John Burton (1878 - 1971)

Summary

(Sir) John Cleland was the first Marks Professor of Pathology at the University of Adelaide (1920 to 1948). With T.D. Campbell and Frederick Wood Jones he formed the Board of Anthropological Research at the University which he chaired for nearly 30 years. Earlier he was Government Pathologist for the Western Australian Department of Public Health (1905-1909) and Microbiologist at the Government Bureau of Microbiology in Sydney (1909-1920). He was also a passionate naturalist and ornithologist who wrote a two volume book on the larger fungi of South Australia (1934-1935) and presented a collection of nearly 30,000 plants, which included nearly 60 new species, to the South Australian Herbarium. Cleland also donated nearly 1,000 bird-skins to Gregory Mathews for his book, "The Birds of Australia" (1910-1927), a number of which became type specimens. About 40 species or subspecies of fungi, vascular plants and animals were named after him, as well as a new genus Clelandia in both the plant and animal worlds. John Cleland is also commemorated by the Cleland Conservation Park in the Mount Lofty Ranges, South Australia (opened 1967) and the Cleland Kindergarten in Beaumont, South Australia. He was involved in numerous other activities and was a key instigator of the foundation of the Flora and Fauna Handbooks Committee of South Australia, a one-time president (and founding member) of the Medical Sciences Club of South Australia and President of the Western Australian Natural History Society.

Details

Events

1900

Career position - House Surgeon at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, New South Wales

1900

Education - Bachelor of Medicine (MB) completed at the University of Adelaide (?)

1901 - 1902

Career position - Second Resident Pathologist at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

1902

Education - Doctor of Medicine (MD) completed at the University of Sydney (?)

1903

Career position - Study trip to the London School of Tropical Medicine and to Glasgow

1904

Career position - Cancer Research Scholar at the London Hospital

1905 - 1909

Career position - Western Australian Government Bacteriologist and Pathologist

1909 - 1920

Career position - Microbiologist then Senior Microbiologist at the Bureau of Microbiology in Sydney

1912

Taxonomy event - J.H. Maiden named the Eucalyptus clelandii Maiden (1912) in honour of Cleland and his uncle Allan Fraser Cleland.

1917

Career position - President of the Royal Society of New South Wales

1920 - 1938

Career position - Honorary Pathologist then Honorary Consultant at the Adelaide Hospital

1920 - 1948

Career position - Inaugural Marks Professor of Pathology (including bacteriology), then Professor Emeritus at the University of Adelaide

1921 - 1948

Career position - Founder and Editor of the Royal Adelaide Hospital's Medical and Scientific Archives

1922 - 1968

Career position - Chairman of the Flora and Fauna Handbooks Committee of South Australia

1927 - 1928

Career position - President of the Royal Society of South Australia

1933

Award - Sir Joseph Verco Medal received from the Royal Society of South Australia

1934

Taxonomy event - Description of Eucalyptus odorata Behr & Schlecht. var. refracta Blakely. Cleland collected the type material.

1934

Taxonomy event - Description of Eucalyptus odorata Behr & Schlecht. var. Macrocarpa Blakely. Cleland collected the type material

1935 - 1936

Career position - President of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union

1936 - 1955

Career position - Chairman of the Belair National Park in South Australia

1938 - 1939

Career position - President of the South Australian Ornithological Association

1939

Award - Clive Lord Memorial Medal received from the Royal Society of Tasmania

1940 - 1941

Career position - President of the Royal Society of South Australia

1949 -

Award - Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of South Australia (FRS Hon)

1949 -

Award - Honorary Life Member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union

1949

Award - Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)

1952

Award - Australian Natural History Medallion received from the Field Naturalists' Club

1961 -

Award - Life member of the South Australian Ornithological Association

1964

Award - John Lewis Gold Medal received from the South Australian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia.

1964

Award - Knight Bachelor (Kt cr)

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

• Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Australian Medical Association (Victorian Branch)

• John Burton Cleland - Records, 1935 - 1977; Australian Medical Association (Victorian Branch). Details

Barr Smith Library, Special Collections, The University of Adelaide

• John Burton Cleland - Records, 1907 - 1972, SR 572 C61; Barr Smith Library, Special Collections, The University of Adelaide. Details

National Herbarium, Melbourne

• John Burton Cleland - Records, 1931 - 1968, MSS 1; National Herbarium, Melbourne. Details

State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana

• John Burton Cleland - Records, 1626 - 1971, PRG 5; State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana. Details

Waite Agricultural Research Institute

• John Burton Cleland - Records, 1950 - 1971; Waite Agricultural Research Institute. Details

Published resources

Books

• Hall, Norman, Botanists of the Eucalypts : short biographies of people who have named eucalypts, whose names have been given to species or who have collected type material, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Melbourne, 1978, 101 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Southcott, R. V., 'Cleland, Sir John Burton (1878-1971), Pathologist and Naturalist', in Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle (eds), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 8, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1981, pp. 23-25. Also available at http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080024b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

• 'John Burton Cleland. A Tribute on His Eightieth Birthday', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. 82, 1959, pp. 339-344. Details
• '[Obituary]: Vale...Professor Sir John Cleland', South Australian Naturalist, vol. 46, no. 1, 1971, pp. 14-15. Details
• 'Obituaries: Clarence Leslie Lang; John Burton Cleland', Emu, vol. 72, no. 3, 1972, pp. 117-118. Details
• 'Obituary: Sir John Burton Cleland, 1878-1971', Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, vol. 56, no. 3, 1973, pp. 94-95. Details
• Cleland, J.B., 'The History of Ornithology in South Australia', Emu, vol. 36, 37, 1937, pp. 197-221; 296-312,133-147. Details
• Cleland, J.B., 'The Naturalist in Medicine with Particular Reference to Australia. The Archibald Watson Memorial Lecture', Medical Journal of Australia, no. 1, 1950, pp. 547-551. Details
• Cleland, J.B., 'The Naturalist in Medicine with Particular Reference to Australia', Medical Journal of Australia, no. 1, 1950, pp. 549-563. Details
• Cleland, J.B., 'Dicksonia in the Mount Lofty Ranges', South Australian Naturalist, vol. 43, 1968. Details
• Cleland, J.B., 'Reminiscences of the Early Days of 'the Field Naturalists' Section of the Royal Society of SA', South Australian Naturalist, vol. 44, no. 2, 1969, pp. 21-23. Details
• Kraehenbuehl, D. N., '[Obituary]: Professor Sir John Burton Cleland 1878-1971', South Australian Ornithologist, vol. 26, no. 1, 1971, pp. 2-4. Details
• Southcott, R. V., 'Obituary: John Burton Cleland, Kt, CBE, MD, ChM, FRACP', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. 95, no. 4, 1971, pp. 242-247. Details
• Thomas, David, 'What Professor Cleland Did in his Holidays: Collecting Expeditions to Central Australia as Indigenous Health Research, 1925-1939', Health and History, vol. 4, no. 2, 2002, pp. 57-79. Details

Online Resources

• 'Cleland, J B', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-553118. Details

See also

• French, E. L. and Stewart, D.F., 'Lionel Bately Bull, 1889-1978', Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 5, no. 4, 1983, pp. 90-110. Also available at http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/HR9830540090.htm. Details
• Robin, Libby, The Flight of the Emu: a Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901-2001, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2001, 492 pp. Details