Tom Iredale collection of aggregated papers

fonds

1871-1973

Textual Records, Photographs, Clippings, Drawings, Philatelic Records, Graphic Materials

9661101

1 metre of textual material (4 boxes and 2 folders)

Tom Iredale (1880-1972), conchologist and ornithologist, was born on 24 March 1880 at Stainburn, Cumberland, England, eighth child of John Iredale, market gardener, and his wife Ann Lamb, née Wilkinson. About 1899 he was apprenticed to a pharmacist, and in 1901 he sailed for New Zealand.

Arriving at Christchurch in 1902, Iredale worked as a clerk. In his spare time Iredale observed birds with W. R. B. Oliver, who introduced him to mollusca. In 1908 with four companions he spent eleven months on Kermadec Islands and, after visiting Queensland, returned to England in 1909.

In 1913 Iredale and Gregory Mathews began preparing notes for a handbook on New Zealand birds. Articles followed and in 1921 they published the first and only volume of Manual of the Birds of Australia.

While in Mathews's employ, Iredale managed to study chitons, collect avian parasites in Hungary, assist C. Davies Sherborn with his massive Index Animalium, and serve for four years on the British Ornithologists' Union's nomenclature committee. He was also a member of the Malacological and fellow of the Zoological societies of London. Gifted with extraordinary bibliographical ability, he enjoyed astounding scientific gatherings by quoting long references from memory.

At the St Giles registry office on 8 June 1923 he married his second wife, artist Lilian Marguerite Medland (1880-1955). That same year they settled in Sydney, and, with A. F. Basset Hull, he published the first part of a Monograph of the Australian loricates. On 1 August 1924 he was appointed conchologist to the Australian Museum; he retired in 1944. He was to publish over 400 papers on shells, birds, books, naturalists, studies in ecology, zoogeography and the linking up of fossil molluscs with their living relations. He named many new genera and species of animals, and his own name is perpetuated in ornithology, conchology and ichthyology. He was a fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (1931) and its president in 1937-38. In 1959 he was awarded the (W.B.) Clarke medal of the Royal Society of New South Wales.

His wife Lilian Medland was born on 29 May 1880 at North Finchley, London, daughter of Lewis Medland, landed proprietor, and his wife Ada Emmeline, née Cranstone. She left home at 16 to train as a nurse at Guy's Hospital. Between 1906 and 1911 she completed 318 monochrome plates to illustrate Charles Stonham's five volumes on The Birds of the British Islands. In 1911 she was invited to illustrate a revised edition of William Yarrell's A History of British Birds; it was never completed, but in 1972 the 248 paintings she had done were discovered in immaculate condition.

In Australia, Lilian painted thirty species of birds for the Australian Museum, which were issued as postcards in 1925. In the 1930s she completed 53 plates depicting 883 Australian birds for Mathews. She illustrated articles in various journals and painted plates for her husband's Birds of Paradise and Bower Birds (Melbourne, 1950), Birds of New Guinea (Melbourne, 1956) and his proposed book on Australian kingfishers. Her painting of the Providence petrel Pterodroma Solandri was used on a Norfolk Island stamp issued in 1961.

Lilian Iredale died at her home at Queenscliffe on 16 December 1955; Tom Iredale died at Harbord on 12 April 1972. He was survived by a daughter of his first marriage and by a son and daughter of his second.

Reference:
Kloot, Tess, 'Iredale, Tom (1880–1972)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/iredale-tom-6797/text11757 (accessed 21 March 2012)

COLLECTION 1:
Tom Iredale and Lilian Medland papers, 1871-1999

COLLECTION 2:
Tom Iredale - Letters (10) received from Nuri Mass, 1942-1946, 1955, 1963-1964

COLLECTION 3:
Tom Iredale papers 1901-1997