Person

Roe, John Septimus (1797 - 1878)

Born
8 May 1797
Newbury, Berkshire, England
Died
28 May 1878
Western Australia, Australia
Occupation
Surveyor and Explorer

Summary

John Roe was posted in 1817 as master's mate to the surveying service in New South Wales carrying on the work done by M. Flinders. In 1829 he took the position of Surveyor-General in the Swan River Colony and collected natural history and geological specimens. From 1830 to 1849 Roe made 16 journeys of exploration in Western Australia.

Details

Chronology

1829 - 1849?
Career position - Surveyor-general to the settlement of Swan River, Western Australia
1867
Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus patens Benth. Roe collected a syntype

Related Corporate Bodies

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

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

JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia

  • John Septimus Roe - Records, 1807 - 1878, MN 8; JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia. Details

State Records Office of Western Australia

  • John Septimus Roe - Records, 1817 - 1839, ACC 1114/37 and others; State Records Office of Western Australia. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Books

  • Hercock, Marion, The Western Australian explorations of john Septimus Roe 1829 - 1849 (Fremantle, W.A.: Hesperion Press, 2014), 688 pp. Details
  • Jackson, Janice Lynn Burton, Not an Idle Man: a Biography of John Septimus Roe, Western Australia's First Surveyor-General (1797-1878), West Swan, WA: MB Roe (Fremantle, W.A.: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1982). Details
  • McKenna, Mark, From the edge: Australia's lost histories (Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press (University of Melbourne Publishing Ltd), 2016), xx, 251 pp. See pages: 67, 69. Details
  • Mercer, F. R., Amazing Career: the story of Western australia's first surveyor-general (Perth: 1962). Details

Book Sections

  • Broeze, Frank, 'John Septimus Roe, 1797-1878' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Details
  • Uren, Malcolm, 'Roe, John Septimus (1797-1878), naval officer, surveyor and explorer' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Douglas Pike, ed., vol. 2 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), pp. 390-392. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020344b.htm. Details

Edited Books

  • Brooker, Leslie ed., Explorers Routes Revisited: Roe Expedition 1836 (Kalamunda, W.A : Carlisle, W.A.: Lesley Brooker; Hesperian Press, 2012), 162 pp. Details

Journal Articles

  • Fishburn, Matthew, ''The private museum of John Septimus Roe, dispersed 1842', Archives of natural history, 47 (1) (2020), 166-82. Details
  • Zylstra, Baige, '"Those riches of which we are so proud": Western Australian geological collecting for international and intercolonial exhibitions 1850 - 1890', Studies in Western Australian history, 35 (2020), 59-74. Details

Resources

See also

  • Cook, Denise; and Witcomb, Andrea, 'The natural history collections of the Perth Museum at the Swan River Mechanics' Institute: origins, role and legacies', Studies in Western Australian history, 35 (2020), 90-109. Details
  • 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 (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1978), 101 pp. Details
  • Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details

McCarthy, G.J.

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"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260