Gerard Krefft Explained

Gerard Krefft
Birth Date:17 February 1830
Birth Place:Duchy of Brunswick
Death Place:Woolloomooloo, New South Wales
Resting Place:St Jude's Church, Randwick
Nationality:Naturalised British Subject in New South Wales (1864)[1]
Fields:natural history, zoology, palaeontology, ichthyology, entomology, herpetology
Workplaces:National Museum of Victoria
Australian Museum
Education:St Martin's College, Braunschweig
Known For:Discovery, identification, and naming of the
Queensland lungfish
Awards:Knight,[2]
Order of the Crown of Italy,
Fellow,
Linnean Society
Corresponding Member, Zoological Society of London
Author Abbrev Zoo:kreftii
Spouse:Annie McPhail (died 1926) (m.1869)
Children:4
Father:William Krefft
Mother:Johanna Bischoff
Relatives:ichthyologist and herpetologist
Gerhard Krefft (1912–1993) (great-nephew)[3]

Johann Ludwig (Louis) Gerard Krefft (17 February 1830 – 18 February 1881), was an Australian artist, draughtsman, scientist, and natural historian who served as the curator of the Australian Museum for 13 years (1861–1874).[4] He was one of Australia's first and most influential zoologists and palaeontologists.He is also noted as an ichthyologist for his scientific description of the Queensland lungfish (now recognized as a classic example of Darwin's "living fossils");[5] and, in addition to his numerous scientific papers and his extensive series of weekly newspaper articles on natural history, his publications include The Snakes of Australia (1869), Guide to the Australian Fossil Remains in the Australian Museum (1870f), The Mammals of Australia (1871f), On Australian Entozoa (1872a), and Catalogue of the Minerals and Rocks in the Australian Museum (1873a).[6]

Krefft was one of the very few Australian scientists in the 1860s and 1870s to support Darwin's position on the origin of species by means of natural selection. According to Macdonald, et al. (2007), he was one of the first to warn of the devastating effects of the invasive species (sheep, cats, etc.) on native species.[7] [8] Also, along with several significant others such as Charles Darwin, during his 1836 visit to the Blue Mountains,[9] Edward Wilson, the proprietor of the Melbourne Argus,[10] and George Bennett, one of the trustees of the Australian Museum[11] Krefft expressed considerable concern in relation to the effects of the expanding European settlement upon the indigenous population.[12] [13]

Family

Krefft was born on 17 February 1830 in the Duchy of Brunswick (now part of Germany), the son of William Krefft, a confectioner, and his wife Johanna (née Bischhoff).[14]

Education

He was educated at St Martin's College in Braunschweig (i.e.,) from 1834 to 1845. As a youth, he was interested in art, especially painting animals, and wanted to go on to a formal study of painting; however, after his schooling, his family found employment for him at a mercantile firm in Halberstadt.[15]

Marriage

He married Annie McPhail (1847–1926),[16] later (1893) Mrs. Robert Macintosh,[17] on 6 February 1869. According to Nancarrow (2007, p. 5), Annie McPhail was the Australian-born daughter of Scottish bounty immigrants, who had arrived in Australia in 1837 to work for George Bowman, and she was five months pregnant at the time of her marriage to Krefft.[18]

They had four children,[19] only two of whom survived their infancy: Rudolph Gerard Krefft (1869–1951),[20] [21] [22] and Herman Gerard Krefft (1879–1911).[23] A fifth child, an unnamed stillborn daughter, was delivered on 2 July 1874.[24]

German heritage

As a German-speaker, Krefft belonged to the largest non-English-speaking group in Australia in the 1800s;[25] [26] and, as such, Krefft was one of a number of influential German-speaking scientists[27] who, according to Barrett, et al. (2018, p. 2) brought their "epistemic traditions" to Australia, and not only became "deeply entangled with the Australian colonial project", but also were "intricately involved in imagining, knowing and shaping colonial Australia".[28]

Moreover, and in relation to Krefft (the scientist) and his wider disciplinary allegiances and his limited deference to the supposed authority of the established British scientific elite, unlike the Anglo-Australian trustees of the Australian Museum and "like many [of the German] scientists working in Australia, England was never "home" for Krefft as it was for the majority of colonists" and, typically, England did not "provid[e] the sole intellectual influence for [Krefft's] investigations".[29]

"Natural history"

Given Vallances' tripartite division (1978) of nineteenth century Australian science[30] i.e., the proto-scientific period (1788–1839),[31] the pioneer-scientific period (1840–1874),[32] and the classic science period (1875-)[33] Krefft's influential Australian career was firmly centred in the pioneer-scientific period. Consequently, and in order to avoid the prochronistic mistake of viewing the past through the eyes of the present, and given,

it is important to note that the widely used "umbrella" terms of natural history and natural historian (or naturalist) were generally understood (and variously applied) in the mid-1800s to identify the collective endeavours of an extremely wide range of diverse enterprises that are, now, separately identified as, at least, the disciplines of anthropology, astronomy, biology, botany, ecology, entomology, ethnology, geology, herpetology, ichthyology, mammalogy, mineralogy, mycology, ornithology, palaeontology, and zoology.[44]

The "Darwinian doctrine" and the consequent "Darwinian controversy"

Krefft's professional career, his museum curatorship, his interactions with the Anglo-Australian trustees of the Australian Museum, and his professional endeavours to disseminate the latest scientific understandings to the people of New South Wales in the mid-1800s coincided with an entirely new awareness of the world, derived from the abundance of ongoing scientific advances, technological innovations, geological discoveries, and colonial explorations, and the emerging rational skepticism about the objective veracity of specific Christian scriptures along with the concomitant challenges to the heretofore accepted theology, tenets of faith, and established religious practices.

Enlightenment challenges to Biblical Authority

Darwin's challenge to the religious conservatives' view that species were immutable coexisted with an entirely different (and unassociated) set of controversies involving the challenges to Biblical authority that came from many directions;[45] not only in relation to the theological/doctrinal issues of the Bible's inerrancy, infallibility, and literalism (rather than allegorism), and not only in relation to its increasingly-demonstrated scientific, historical, geographical, and chronological inaccuracies, and the consequent controversies about the age of the Earth,[46] but, also, in relation to the precise accuracy of the translations-of-the-original presented in particular versions,[47] as well as the separate question of how the Bible itself had developed and which parts (when written, and by whom) of which particular texts (and in what order) should be included in the Bible itself.

One of the most significant and provocative challenges to the prevailing status quo came with the (October 1862) publication of the first (and most controversial) instalment The Pentateuch Examined as an Historical Narrative of the mathematician, Biblical scholar, and Bishop of Natal, John Colenso’s seven-part treatise, The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined (1862–1879). Colenso, from his research and his textual studies "had convinced himself that the Old Testament writings contained much in their statements on people, time, and distance that was mythical and legendary" (Mozley, 1967, p. 427);[48] and, drawing attention to the wide range of statistical and practical anomalies in the text (e.g., Noah's Ark, the Deluge, the Crossing of the Red Sea, the Exodus, etc.), Colenso's sales were "enormous" (Vance, 2013, p. 86) and the book itself, "the first edition [of which] was sold off directly it was published … excited a great sensation".[49] [50] [51]

A (late-1862) Editorial in the English Churchman that was widely re-published in Australia compared the impact of Colenso's controversial challenges to the authority of the Bible with those already made by Charles Darwin and John Crawfurd,[52] and an extensive editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald defended the Biblical accounts, and directly attacked both Colenso and his publication,[53] strongly asserting that, "the Mosaic record remains one of the noblest books ever composed by mortal agency. It is a book which contains the only rational account of the origin and present circumstances of humanity ...".[54]

The controversy over Colenso's challenges to Biblical authority, accepted authorship, and historical accuracy continued in Australia. A decade later, on 7 July 1873, the Melbourne-based Jesuit, Joseph O'Malley,[55] author of Noah's Ark Vindicated and Explained: A Reply to Dr. Colenso's Difficulties (1871) (which included O'Malley's "Imaginary Plan of the [1080 stalls in the] Ark"), visited Sydney and lectured on "Noah's Ark",[56] delivering the standard Roman Catholic position on Noah's Ark and the Deluge, and attempting to explain away many of Colenso's challenges. The lecture, chaired by the devout Irish Catholic layman Justice Peter Faucett,[57] Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales who would later (in 1875) express the judicial opinion that Krefft's dismissal from his Museum curatorship was justified was well attended.[58] [59]

Evolution

Darwin was not the first to speak of "evolution"; and Darwin, himself, did not use the term "evolution" until the sixth (1872) edition of his Origin (in its first five editions he spoke of "descent through modification").

Robert Chambers, in his popular works, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844/1884) and Explanations (1845), had already made the notion of "evolution" a matter of public discussion.[60] Also, there were the two earlier (anonymous) articles recently attributed (see: Tanghe & Kestemont, 2018) to Robert Jameson, the Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh, and the Journal's editor "Observations on the Nature and Importance of Geology" (Anon, 1826; esp. pp. 297–299) and "Of the Changes which Life has experienced on the Globe" (Anon, 1827), that had been published in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal at the time that Darwin was studying medicine at Edinburgh University.

Jameson's articles were even more influential in the case of Darwin, given the fact that during the 1826/1827 academic year, Darwin had, as an extracurricular study, "assiduously" attended Jameson's popular natural history lectures at Edinburgh University, which involved "lectures five days a week for five months" (Secord, 1991, pp. 134–135), at least one of which was entitled "On the Origins of the Animal Species" (Tanghe & Kestemont, 2018, p. 586).

Natural selection

In a paper read to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858 written separately from, but presented jointly with, that of Alfred Russel Wallace (i.e., Darwin & Wallace, 1858) that was firmly based upon the foundations of the extensive and varied evidence provided by his comprehensive in-the-field observations over two decades,[61] Darwin was the first to propose "natural selection" (as opposed to the "artificial selection" of livestock- or plant-breeders)[62] thereby "[substituting] a natural for a supernatural explanation of the material organic universe" (Abbott, 1912, p. 18) as the process responsible for the diversity of life on Earth.[63] [64]

Along with the Sydney botanist, Robert D. FitzGerald, and the Melbourne economist, Professor William Edward Hearn,[65] [66] Krefft was one of the very few Australian scientists in the 1860s and 1870s who supported Darwin's position on the origin of species by means of natural selection.[67] [68] [69]

Ellegård's five "positions" held by scientists in the Darwinian controversy

Alvar Ellegård's extensive (1958) survey of the coverage of the "Darwinian doctrine" in the U.K. press between 1859 and 1872[70] distinguished three aspects "first, the Evolution idea in its general application to the whole of the organic world; second, the Natural Selection theory; and third, [the] theory of Man's descent from the lower animals" (Ellegård, 1990, p. 24) and identified five ideological "positions" taken (or ideological "attitudes" displayed) by individual participants over that decade and a half,[71] which were determined, to a considerable extent, not only by their levels of education,[72] but also by their particular politico-social,[73] philosophical,[74] and/or religious orientation.[75]

These five positions (collectively) reflected a simple series, which "indicate[d] an increasing degree of favourableness towards Darwin's theory, from total rejection to complete acceptance" (p. 30); and, as one moved from lower (A) to higher (E) along Ellegård's series, "less and less of the processes going into the formation of species were recognized [by those holding that position] as supernatural, or outside the range of ordinary scientific explanation ... [and, therefore] anybody accepting a position with a higher [level] accepted ipso facto all the scientific explanation already granted by those holding a lower position" (p. 31):

According to Ellegård's survey (p. 32), until 1863, the majority of British scientists belonged to either (A) or (B); but, by 1873, the majority had moved to either (C) or (D), with a small number of them going on to position (E).[80]

However, things were considerably different in Australia. Setting aside disciplinary "outliers" such as FitzGerald, Hearn, and Krefft (each of whom held position (E)) and ignoring the (peripheral) fact that Charles Darwin was elected as an honorary member of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1879,[81] and that the pro-Darwinians, natural historian, Thomas Huxley, and botanist, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, were awarded the Society's prestigious Clarke Medal in 1880[82] and 1885[83] respectively it was not really until the late 1890s, due to the influence of the academic appointments of William Aitcheson Haswell to the University of Sydney, Baldwin Spencer to the University of Melbourne, Ralph Tate to the University of Adelaide, and James Thomas Wilson to the University of Sydney, etc.,[84] and the administrative/curatorial appointments of Robert Etheridge to the Australian Museum in Sydney, Baldwin Spencer to the National Museum of Victoria in Melbourne, and Herbert Scott to the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, etc., that the majority of Australian scientists began to move away from (A) or (B), and that "the contributions of Darwin and his successors [could begin to] seriously affect Australian thinking and bring it into the mainstream of scientific thought" (Mozley, p.  430).

Artist

In order to avoid the military draft, Krefft moved to New York City in 1850,[85] [86] where he was employed as a clerk and a draughtsman, and was mainly concerned with producing depictions of sea views and shipping.[87]

Whilst in New York, he encountered the work of John James Audubon at the New York Mercantile Library. Having been granted permission to do so, Krefft made copies of some of the Audubon plates, which he then sold to raise his fare to Australia.[88] Krefft arrived in Melbourne, from New York, on 15 October 1852, on the Revenue,[89] [90] and worked in the Victorian goldfields "with much success" for some five years. Krefft contributed examples of his drawings to the Victorian Industrial Society's Exhibition, in Melbourne, in February 1858.[91] [92]

Victoria (1852 – 1858)

Melbourne

Having met William Blandowski when he (Krefft) was making copies of Gould's illustrations of native animals in The Mammals of Australia in the Public Library of Victoria,[93] [94] the talented artist and draughtsman was hired, by Blandowski, "on the basis of Krefft's ability to produce detailed drawings of natural history specimens",[95] to help sketch and collect specimens for the National Museum of Victoria[96] on William Blandowski's explorations of the relatively poorly-known and semi-arid country around the confluence of the Murray River and Darling River in 1856–1857.[97] [98] [99]

Blandowski, when recalled to Melbourne by the Victorian Government in early August 1857, took all of his collected material back to Melbourne with him. Krefft took command of the expedition until it finally returned at the end of November 1857.[100] In 1858 Krefft was appointed to the National Museum of Victoria,[101] to catalogue the collection of specimens that he (i.e., Krefft) had brought back to Melbourne with him,[102] which he listed under 3389 catalogue numbers.[103]

Blandowski, the Museum of Natural History, and Professor McCoy

Krefft's later accounts of the expedition's discoveries (viz., 1865a and 1865b) are not only significant in themselves, but have additional significance due to the controversies surrounding Blandowski's sudden departure from Australia along with his collection of illustrations, documents, in-the-field notes, and specimens. Apart from Blandowski's (1862) controversial Australien in 142 photographischen Abbildungen nach zehnjährigen Erfahrungen ('Australia in 142 Photographic Illustrations after a Decade of Experiences'),[104] Blandowski never published anything further in relation to that expedition.

Blandowski, one of the inaugural members of the Council of the Philosophical Society of Victoria,[105] had been appointed as the Government Zoologist in 1854 by Andrew Clarke, Surveyor General of Victoria. He also served (ex officio) as the curator of the Museum of Natural History, which had opened on 9 March 1854, was open to the public for six hours daily, and was located in the Assay Office in La Trobe Street, Melbourne.[106] [107] [108]

Blandowski's opposition to the controversial (1856) decision to (permanently, rather than temporarily)[109] move the collection of the Museum of Natural History to the (then remote)[110] campus of the fledgeling University of Melbourne, and deliver it over to the custody of the university's Professor of Natural Science, Frederick McCoy,[111] [112] who argued (1857) that museums should exist to serve the interests of real science, rather than them "being at best a place merely for [the] innocent amusement of schoolboys and idlers" rather than, that is, follow the example of the British Museum and locate the collection within the premises of the (central) Melbourne Public Library, "which was the first free public library in Victoria and the centrepiece of public education and improvement in the colony"[113] led to many clashes with McCoy ("after his return to Melbourne [Blandowski] never reported back to duty at the museum").[114]

There were also well-founded accusations that, "[having arrived] in Adelaide in August 1857 with twenty-eight boxes containing 17,400 specimens", Blandowski had failed to deliver the material collected during his expedition upon his return to Melbourne, despite being "ordered three times by the Victorian government to return his specimens and manuscripts" a fact that explains, in the absence of any coherent account in English of Blandowski's collected material, the value of Krefft's later accounts (1865a and 1865b) of the expedition's discoveries.

When threatened by legal action, Blandowski hurriedly left Melbourne, on 17 March 1859 (on Captain A.A. Ballaseyers's Prussian barque Mathilde), never to return.[115]

Germany

In 1858, following the death of his father, Krefft was obliged to return to Germany, where he travelled via England where he visited the principal museums, met up with John Gould, John Edward Gray, Albert Günther, and Richard Owen, and presented a paper (Krefft, 1858b) to the Zoological Society of London.

Krefft took many illustrations and specimens with him; however, as Allen (2006, p. 33) notes, "after his return to Germany, Krefft attempted to publish his observations and drawings, but was prevented from doing so by Blandowski ... [with] Blandowski claim[ing to Krefft's publisher] that the artwork from the expedition belonged to him, as expedition leader".[116]

The Museum trustees, at a special meeting held the day after Krefft's removal from the Museum's premises, appointed the Macleay protégé, Edward Pierson Ramsay, to the position of Curator (Strahan, 1979, p. 38), an office that Ramsay held until 1895, when he was succeeded by Robert Etheridge.

Gold theft and its aftermath

Following his report to the trustees that, upon his return to the Museum on Christmas Eve 1873, Krefft had discovered a robbery (which was never solved) of "specimens of gold to the value of £70",[217] [218] [219] [220] [221] [222] the trustees (although eager to do so) were unable to find any evidence of Krefft's complicity.[223]

By this stage, with his accusations that the trustees were using the Museum's resources to augment their own private collections,[224] [225] the "cosmopolitan" Krefft had fallen foul of most of the Trustees especially William John Macleay, whose own extensive private collection, which included the comprehensive collections he had inherited from his uncle, Alexander Macleay (1767–1848), and his cousin, William Sharp Macleay (1792–1865), went on to become the foundation of the collections of the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney in the 1890s.[226] [227]

Museum closure

In the process of the escalating dispute between the trustees and Krefft,[228] the Museum was closed to the public, by order of the trustees, for eleven weeks (from 4 July to 23 September 1874),[229] [230] At the same time, a police guard was stationed at the Museum, and Krefft was denied access to all parts of the Museum (including the cellar within which the fuel for his much-needed-in-the-winter fires was stored), except his private residence.[231] [232] [233] [234]

Krefft had been suspended following an investigation by a subcommittee of trustees Christopher Rolleston, Auditor-General of New South Wales, was appointed chairman, and Archibald Liversidge, Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Sydney, Edward Smith Hill, wine and spirit merchant, and Haynes Gibbes Alleyne, of the New South Wales Medical Board who, having examined a number of witnesses, found some of the charges against Krefft sustained, and also claim to have discovered "a number of [other] grave irregularities".[235] Krefft had been unable to meet the trustees' request to appear before them on the Thursday (2 July 1874) because he was unwell (he had supplied a medical certificate to that effect),[236] and that his wife, whose difficult confinement had been attended by George Bennett, had just delivered a stillborn child (on 2 July 1874), a daughter, after two days of intense labour (with Krefft by her side the whole time) in their residence over the Museum.[237] [238]

Eviction from his residential quarters

On 1 September 1874, three weeks before Krefft's forceful eviction, long-term trustees George Bennett (who, at the time, was attending Mrs Krefft's confinement) and William Branwhite Clarke both resigned "as a consequence of the steps recently taken by the trustees of the Museum with respect to the Curator".[239]

On 21 September 1874, Krefft and his family were physically removed from his Museum apartment within which he had barricaded himself,[240] by the "diminutive bailiff" Charles H. Peart i.e., at least "diminutive" when compared with Krefft, "a man of herculean stature"[241] [242] in the company of one of the trustees, Edward Smith Hill, and assisted by two known prizefighters (identified as Kelly and Williams) who had been expressly hired (from Kiss's Horse Bazaar) to effect the eviction,[243] [244] [245] because the Police refused to act, on the grounds that Krefft had not been dismissed by the Government, only by the trustees (and, therefore, it was a civil (and not a police) matter).

At the time of his eviction, Krefft was forcibly carried out of his apartment, refusing to move from his chair, and was unceremoniously thrown out into Macquarie street by the prizefighters.[246] [247] The press report of Krefft's subsequent (November 1874) damages action noted that, "throughout the affair [Krefft] had denied the trustees' power to dismiss him; and, on the trustees appealing to the Government, the Colonial Secretary [viz., [[Henry Parkes]]] had cautiously told the trustees that, as they thought it expedient to expel [Krefft] without first seeking the advice of the Government, no assistance could be afforded".

At the time of Krefft's forcible eviction, all of his possessions were seized; and, almost two years after the eviction Krefft was still complaining that "my own and my wife's personal property, my books, specimens, scientific instruments, medals and testimonials", all of which had been "illegally taken possession of by the trustees", were still to be returned to him.[248] [249]

Krefft's position

Krefft's position was that the trustees, acting independently of the New South Wales government, had no right to dismiss him.

Trustee's allegations

The trustees two members of which, William Macleay and Captain Arthur Onslow, "manifested great animus towards Mr. Krefft, and used their utmost exertions to cast obloquy upon that gentleman"[250] [251] responded by accusing Krefft of drunkenness, falsifying attendance records, and wilfully destroying a fossil sent to the Museum by one of its trustees, George Bennett, for its preparation to be sent on the Richard Owen at the British Museum. This entirely false allegation was completely (and independently) refuted by a letter from Owen, that Bennett had received in late June 1874, in which Owen "acknowledged receiving [the fossil specimen] in good order".[252] [253] [254] Krefft was even accused of condoning the sale of pornographic postcards. The (fifty to sixty) postcards in question, "some of which were of the most indecent character" (which had been "seen" by one of the trustees "in the workshop of the Museum") had been copied, entirely without Krefft's knowledge or consent, by the museum employees (and Krefft's subordinates) taxidermist/photographer Robert Barnes and his brother Henry Barnes.

Legal actions

In November 1874 Krefft brought an action to recover £2,000 damages for trespass and assault against the trustee, Edward Smith Hill, who was physically present at, and had directed his eviction.[255] [256]

The trial lasted four days, and Justice Alfred Cheeke, the presiding judge "ruled that [Hill] and his co-trustees had acted illegally", and that, "as the trustees had no power to appoint a Curator, they clearly had no power to remove him from office, or expel him from the Museum premises", and, finally, that "[because] the Curator was an officer receiving his salary from the Government, ... he could not be removed from the premises without the sanction of the Government".[257] "The jury [of four], after a short deliberation, found a verdict for the plaintiff, with £250 for damages".[258]

In September 1875, Hill applied to the NSW Supreme Court for a retrial, and his motion for a new trial was heard by Justices John Fletcher Hargrave and Peter (Noah's Ark) Faucett over three days (7 to 9 September).[259] Justice Hargrave, noting that the trustees' behaviour was "altogether illegal, harsh, and unjust", and that they had acted "without affording [Krefft] the slightest means of vindicating himself personally, or his scientific or official character as Curator of our Museum"[260] was of the opinion that a new trial should be refused. In contrast, Justice Faucett, noting that Krefft "[had] taken an altogether erroneous view of his position and of the powers of the trustees; and [he, Faucett was] clearly of [the] opinion that his conduct justified his dismissal",[261] was of the opinion that a new trial should be granted. Given these conflicting opinions, the court decided that Hill's action could not be heard.[262] Hill's counsel, Sir William Manning, immediately applied for a rehearing of the action before the full court of three judges.[263] The application was unanimously refused by Justices Martin, Faucett, and Hargrave, on the grounds that, because the Chief Justice, Sir James Martin, was a Museum trustee ex officio and, therefore, could not sit on the Bench, the opinions of the remaining two members, Faucett and Hargrave, had already been clearly expressed.[264]

"When the courts awarded Krefft damages [in 1874], the trustees refused to pay up, though they had plundered the museum's coffers to recoup their own legal costs" (Macinnes, 2012, p. 114). In November 1877 Krefft sued the trustees for damages, and for the value of his medals and property detained by them, and was awarded £925.[265] They offered to return his belongings with only £200.[266]

Legislative proceedings

In 1876, with John Robertson (rather than Henry Parkes) as Premier, the New South Wales parliament passed a vote of £1,000[267] to be applied in satisfaction of Krefft's claims.[268] The Government refused to pay unless Krefft renounced all other claims,[269] which Krefft refused to do. In December 1876 Krefft failed in his attempt to have the Supreme Court In Banco force the Colonial Treasurer to make the legislated-for payment.[270]

Insolvency

He was declared insolvent in 1880.[271] [272]

Death

Krefft failed to find new employment after his dismissal, and his financial difficulties meant that he could not leave Australia.

He died, at the age of 51, from congestion of the lungs, "after suffering for some months past from dropsy and Bright's disease",[273] in Sydney, on 18 February 1881,[274] [275] and was buried in the churchyard of St Jude's Church of England, Randwick.[276]

Obituaries

Research

Learned Society affiliations; awards, etc.

Affiliations

Krefft was:

Awards

Legacy

Apart from his scientific contributions, Krefft is remembered for the demonstration he provided at the Australian Museum, on 14 February 1868, for Prince Alfred at the time, the Duke of Edinburg and, later, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha involving Henry Parkes' pet mongoose killing several snakes. The mongoose was subsequently presented to the Prince who took it with him when he left Australia on the HMS Galatea in May 1868.[295] [296] [297]

He is also renowned for having eaten what may well have been the last extant specimens of the (now extinct) Eastern Chæropus (Chæropus occidentalis) then also known as Chaeropus ecaudatus (Gould) whilst on the (1856/1857) Blandowski Expedition: "They are very good eating, and I am sorry to confess that my appetite more than once over-ruled my love for science" (Krefft, 1865a, p. 14).

"Krefft ... is the only person known to have kept the pig-footed bandicoot Chaeropus ecaudatus in captivity and his observations [viz., at Krefft, 1865a, pp. 12–14] are virtually the only natural history notes on this animal. Krefft's illustration of C. ecaudatus far surpasses the illustration presented in Gould's Mammals of Australia in capturing the essence of the animal, not least because it was drawn from life rather than from a stuffed skin." Menkhorst (2009), p. 65.[298]

See also

References

Krefft's publications (Books, monographs, pamphlets, in chronological order)

Krefft's contributions to academic journals, newspapers, etc.

Krefft was a member of many scientific societies, and contributed papers to the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London and other scientific and popular journals, some of which were also printed separately as pamphlets. For a comprehensive, chronological list (of more than 150 of his contributions), see Whitley (1958, pp. 25–34), with some later additions and modifications to that list at Whitley (1969, pp. 39–42); also, see Mahoney & Ride (1975, pp. 197–215).

Other sources

External links

Notes and References

  1. https://www.ancestry.com.au/sharing/4473258?mark=7b22746f6b656e223a22664830636e65473359516a41575458506c745657364c7048356946665976766a787168307273336c622b453d222c22746f6b656e5f76657273696f6e223a225632227d Gerard Krefft in the New South Wales, Australia, Certificates of Naturalization, 1849–1903 (Certificate no.64/36, date: 12 April 1864)
  2. These three are listed on his tombstone at: Gerard Krefft, at Find a Grave.
  3. Stehmann, M. & Hulley, P.A. (1994), "Gerhard Krefft, 30 March 1912 – 20 March 1993", Copeia, Vol.1994, No.2 (16 May 1994), pp. 558–564.
  4. According to Davidson (2017, p. 15) Krefft was "one of [the Museum's] most accomplished curators".
  5. "Despite his interest in reptiles, mammals and fossils, Krefft cemented his reputation as an ichthyologist with the description in 1870 of the Queensland Lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri."(McGrouther, 2006, p. 103)
  6. See list of Publications, below.
  7. See for instance, Krefft's observations (1862, p. 12) within his 1862 description of the Eastern Chæropus (Chæropus occidentalis):
    "This singular animal which Sir Thomas Mitchell first discovered in his expedition to the Darling, June 16, 1836, is still found on the plains of the Murray; though it is exceedingly rare, and is disappearing as fast as the native population. The large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle occupying the country will soon disperse those individuals which are still to be found in the so-called settled districts, and it will become more and more difficult to procure specimens for our national collection."
  8. See also Krefft (1874).
  9. "The number of aborigines is rapidly decreasing. In my whole ride, with the exception of some boys brought up in the houses, I saw only one other party; these were rather more numerous than the first, and not so well clothed. This decrease, no doubt, must be partly owing to the introduction of spirits, to European diseases (even the milder ones of which, as the measles, prove very destructive), and to the gradual extinction of the wild animals. It is said that numbers of their children invariably perish in very early infancy from the effects of their wandering life. As the difficulty of procuring food increases, so must their wandering habits; and hence the population, without any apparent deaths from famine, is repressed in a manner extremely sudden compared to what happens in civilized countries, where the father may add to his labour, without destroying his offspring": Charles Darwin's 16 January 1836 observations, recorded during his visit to the Blue Mountains (at Darwin (1839), pp. 519–520).
  10. Wilson did not mince his words:
    "This country has been shamelessly stolen from the blacks.... In less than 20 years, we have nearly swept them off the face of the earth. We have shot them down like dogs ... and consigned whole tribes to the agonies of an excruciating death. We have made them drunkards and infected them with disease, which has rotted the bones of their adults, and made few children as exist amongst them a sorrow and a torture from their very instant of birth. We have made them outcasts on their own land, and are rapidly consigning them to entire annihilation." (Wilson, 1856a; for a more-readable text see Wilson, 1856b).
  11. George Bennett later, Secretary/Curator of the Australian Museum (1835–1841) and trustee until his resignation in 1874 in protest at the treatment of Krefft who, following his visit to the Australian Museum in 1832, observed, in relation to its current collection of native flora and fauna, that:
    "Native weapons, utensils, and other specimens of the arts, as existing among the Aborigines, as well as the skulls of the different tribes, and accurate drawings of their peculiar cast of features would be a valuable addition [to its collection]. At the present time [viz. 1834], such might be procured without much difficulty; but it is equally certain, as well as much to be regretted, that the tribes in the settled parts of the colony are fast decreasing, and many, if not all, will, at no distant period, be known just by name. Here, in a public museum, the remains of the arts, & c. as existing among them, may be preserved as lasting memorials of the former races inhabiting the lands, when they had ceased to exist." (Bennett, 1834, p. 69).
  12. For instance, in 1856 (p.358) Krefft noted that "the Aboriginal population of Victoria in 1847 amounted to about 5000; in 1858, shortly after these notes had been taken, their number had been reduced to 1768, men, women, and children; and if they have decreased at the same rate to the present day there will scarcely be a thousand souls left".
  13. In 1871, as part (p. 7) of the "Dog-headed Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger" section of his Mammals of Australia, Krefft (now a museum curator) emphasized the urgency: "The products of a new country should be secured as early as possible, and every object bearing upon the manners and habits, the arts and manufactures of a primitive race, should be gathered and deposited in some public Institution before it is too late."
  14. Rutledge & Whitley (1974).
  15. Heaton (1879), p. 108.
  16. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229844155 "Literary Roll of Honour"
  17. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13576917 "Deaths: McIntosh"
  18. The marriage took place at the Museum; and was witnessed by Dr. George Bennett and Dr. Rudolph Schuette (see The Late Dr. Schuette, Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser, (31 July 1886), p. 3.), the brother in law of Wilhelm Moritz Keferstein (Nancarrow, 2009, p. 148).
  19. Rudolf Gerard Krefft (1869–1951); Archibald Gustav Carl Pappee Krefft (1871–1872) (see: Deaths: Krefft, The Sydney Morning Herald, (27 January 1872), p. 9); William Albert Krefft (1873–1873) (see: Deaths: Krefft, The Sydney Morning Herald, (18 March 1873), p. 1); and Hermann Gerard Krefft (1879–1911).
  20. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14107353 "Marriages: Krefft—Freeman"
  21. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220387826 "(Estate of Susanna McCrae Krefft)"
  22. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KqpWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AOgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6338%2C7277917 "Deaths: Krefft"
  23. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13452095 "Births: Krefft"
  24. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107140911 "Births: Krefft"
  25. Leitner (2004), p. 181.
  26. Wehner (2017).
  27. Such as, for instance, William Blandowski, Ludwig Becker, Hermann Beckler, Amalie Dietrich, Wilhelm Haacke, Diedrich Henne, Friedrich Krichauff, Johann Luehmann, Johann Menge, Carl Mücke (a.k.a. Muecke), Ludwig Preiss, Carl Ludwig Christian Rümker (a.k.a. Ruemker), Moritz Richard Schomburgk, Richard Wolfgang Semon, Karl Theodor Staiger, George Ulrich, Eugene von Guérard, Robert von Lendenfeld, Ferdinand von Mueller, Georg von Neumayer, and Carl Wilhelmi.
  28. In relation to "Australasia", another German-speaking explorer and geologist, Julius von Haast (1822–1887), was appointed as the inaugural Curator/Director of the Canterbury Museum, in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1867.
  29. Davidson (2017), p. 81.
  30. Derived from Simpson (1942), p. 131.
  31. Vallance (1978), pp. 243–245.
  32. Vallance (1978), pp. 245–247.
  33. Vallance (1978), pp. 247–249.
  34. Meacham, S. (27 November 2020). "Dinosaurs to the rescue as New Life awakens for an Old Museum". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  35. The oldest being the French National Museum of Natural History (Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (MNHN), established, as such, in 1793.
  36. "By the 1870s ... "natural history" was being replaced by the word "science", with its connotations of the careful collection of observed data, induction and testing of hypotheses, leading either to verification or falsification" (Bowen & Bowen, 2003, p. 127). (Note that the technical term "scientist" was coined by William Whewell in 1834 (p.59), on the basis that scientist : science :: artist : art.)
  37. In his (1797) Encyclopædia Britannica article on "Philosophy", John Robison, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, noted (p. 582) that the threefold duties of the natural historian were "description" ("to observe with care, and describe with accuracy, the various objects of the universe", "arrangement" ("to determine and enumerate all the great classes of objects … and to mark with precision the principles of this distribution and arrangement, and the characteristics of the various assemblages"), and "reference" ("to determine with certainty the particular group to which any proposed individual belongs").
  38. "Natural History is by no means a historical science; it has no business with accidents or facts, but refers to objects, of which it is indifferent whether they exist contemporaneously or consecutively; and it considers these objects either singly, or in such relations as they are brought into, by the application of the science itself.... The peculiar character of History, consists in being a narrative or a relation of facts, arranged according to the succession of time. Natural History has nothing to relate, and takes no notice of the succession of events." (Mohs, 1822, pp. iii-iv; as translated at Mohs (1825), pp. 1–2.
  39. Robson & Cannon (1964, p. 181).
  40. See: Robson & Cannon (1964), Ruse (1976), Sandoz (2016), Tanghe (2019), and Ward (forthcoming)
  41. The term palæontology which was first used in 1822, by the French zoologist, Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (de Blainville, 1822, p. liv) and adopted by the French geologist Ami Boué (Boué, 1832, p.131) as a sub-set of the domain of geology, first appeared in English in 1833, in reference to the title of Boué's, Mémoires Géologiques et Paléontologiques, (1832).
  42. Whewell, 1837, pp. 479–624; esp. pp. 479–489.
  43. Whewell (1837, p. 481) explains that the portmanteau word palætiological is a blend of ætiological, "the sciences which treat of causes", and palæontology, the science that "treats of beings that formerly existed".
  44. See, for instance, Garascia (2020), p. 314.
  45. See, for instance, Vance, 2013.
  46. The opinion of Bishop James Ussher, that the date of Creation was nightfall on 22 October 4004 BCE, had been popularised by its attachment to the King James Version of the Bible (see, for instance, Lindner, D. (2004) "Bishop James Ussher Sets the Date for Creation", Law2.umkc.edu).
  47. This, for example, became a significant issue in relation to the production of the Revised Version of the King James Version of the Bible in the second half of the 19th century.
  48. Bascom (1954, 1965) makes the useful distinction between myths, which account for the origin of 'things' in the distant past, and legends, which describe the deeds of 'heroes' in the less remote past.
  49. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31819021 "Our London Newsletter (from our own Correspondent) London, Wednesday, November 26, 1862"
  50. "The Pentateuch (from the London Examiner)", The Argus, (21 January 1863), pp. 6–7.
  51. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article154969282 "Dr. Colenso on the Arithmetic of the Pentateuch (from The Spectator, 8th November)"
  52. "We utterly refuse to recognise any such limit or distinction as that attempted to be drawn by those who, while denying the leading facts of the Pentateuch, claim to be regarded as believers in other parts of the Old Testament, or at all events as recognising or acquiescing in the authority of the New Testament. As we observed last week in reference to the theories of Messrs. Darwin and, they directly assume the utter falsity of what both Testaments teach us; whereas our blessed Lord and the Holy Spirit, speaking by Evangelists and Apostles, as directly assume the truth of those events and circumstances which such men deny. To deny the Pentateuch is to deny every portion of God's word in which the facts of the Pentateuch are recognised and reiterated as real and true. He who denies the Scriptures of the Jews denies the Scriptures of the Christians, and is an infidel to both." ("A Heterodox Bishop", The South Australian Advertiser, (23 December 1862), p. 3).
  53. The SMH of the day, owned by John Fairfax, was described by (Mozley, 1967, p. 427) as "that keen observer of Anglican interests".
  54. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13073631 "Editorial"
  55. Obituary at: "The Late Father O'Malley, S.J.", The (Adelaide) Southern Cross, (26 August 1910), p. 13.
  56. It is significant that the advertisements for O'Malley's earlier Melbourne lectures on the same topic appeared under the Jesuit motto AMDG (see, for instance: The Advocate, (9 July 1870), p. 7).
  57. In relation to Faucett's religiosity, devotion, and activities within the Sydney Irish Catholic community ("a most devoted end exemplary Catholic"), see his extended obituary in the Catholic newspaper, The Freeman's Journal: "Death of the Hon. Peter Faucett: Supreme Court Judge for 23 years: Close of a Distinguished Career", The Freeman's Journal, (26 May 1894), p. 15.
  58. "Lecture on Noah's Ark, by the Rev. J O'Malley, S.J.", The Freeman's Journal, (12 July 1873), pp. 9-10.
  59. Somewhat later, in 1877, O'Malley delivered a comprehensive series of thirty lecture/sermons in Melbourne, entitled "Modern Thought", which collectively (the Roman Catholic newspaper The Advocate supposed) would "be extremely instructive to Catholics, whose faith is whole and sound; very useful to others, whose views on religious questions are infected by the course of contemporary thought, and extremely unpleasant to the disciples of Tom Paine, Renan, Huxley, and Darwin" (Modern Thought, The Advocate, (21 April 1877), p. 9), which extended from the First (22 April 1877) Lecture to the last, Thirtieth (1 December 1877) Lecture.
  60. MacPherson, 2001.
  61. That is, Darwin's observations following his four years' theological studies at Cambridge University (1828–1831); studies where Darwin "was ranked 10th in his class" (Beavis, 2011, p. e42.
  62. Although William Charles Wells in a paper read to the Royal Society in 1813, and posthumously published in 1818 (i.e., 1818, pp. 425–439), which elaborates on a single, solitary case alone was, perhaps, the first to recognize certain aspects of natural selection (of which Darwin had no knowledge in 1859, but acknowledged in 1866 (pp. xiv–xv)). Also, as later acknowledged by Darwin (1861, pp. xiv-xv), Patrick Matthew had "anticipated" certain aspects of Darwin's concepts in his (1831) work On Naval Timber and Arboriculture (see Matthew, 1831, pp. 364–369).
  63. "Darwin [sought] to find a way to communicate natural selection as the chief engine driving change in biological systems" (Campbell, 2003, p. 205); and "it was Darwin's greatest accomplishment to show that the complex organization and functionality of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process natural selection without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent."(Ayala, 2009, p. 327)
  64. "Two myths about evolution persist today: that there is a prescient directionality to evolution and that survival depends entirely on cutthroat competitive fitness. Contrary to the first myth, natural selection is a description of a process, not a force. No one is "selecting" organisms for survival in the benign sense of pigeon breeders selecting for desirable traits in show breeds or for extinction in the malignant sense of Nazis selecting prisoners at death camps. Natural selection is nonprescient – it cannot look forward to anticipate what changes are going to be needed for survival.... Natural selection simply means that those individuals with variations better suited to their environment leave behind more offspring than individuals that are less well adapted. This outcome is known as "differential reproductive success"." (Shermer, 2009).
  65. According to La Nauze (1949, p. 61), Hearn's Plutology (1864) "was the first book in English (and I [viz., La Nauze] think in any language) systematically to apply the Darwinian theory of organic evolution to political economy, and to insist that the proper method for the study of economic society was biological". According to Rothbard (2006, II, pp. 463–464), "Hearn's Plutology ... was published in Melbourne in 1863 and reprinted in London the following year ... [and] was used as an economics text in Australia for six decades until 1924 indeed it was virtually the only work on economics published in Australia until the 1920s".
  66. Plutology defined by Hearn (1864, p. 7) as 'the theory of wealth' is a loanword, derived from ploutologie, a term introduced by French Economist, Jean Gustave Courcelle-Seneuil in his Traité Théorique et Pratique d'Économie Politique (1858, pp. 24–25).
  67. However, from his own extensive researches, Barry Butcher (1992, p. 52) notes that, "[although] Krefft claimed that he was converted to Darwinism after reading the Origin, ... there is little evidence that he incorporated any evolutionary doctrine into his work before 1870."
  68. "It was rather remarkable that the members of the Australian scientific establishment almost to a man, including von Mueller and McCoy in Melbourne, were vocal opponents of Darwin's ideas on the origin of species by means of natural selection. For their scientific work however, it mattered little whether they believed that species had evolved or were fixed and immutable, as their interests were in descriptive aspects, the cataloguing and description of animals and plants and their basic natural history. Darwin seems to have had only two local champions among the biologists, Gerard Krefft and Robert D. Fitzgerald." (Mulvaney & Calaby, 1985, p. 146).
  69. "In 1860, [Krefft] was appointed assistant curator of the Australian Museum, and the next year was made curator. He built a reputation as a talented scientist, [and was] one of the few at the time to embrace Darwin's newly published theory of evolution by natural selection" (Olsen, 2022, p. 111).
  70. Namely, from On the Origin of Species (1859), and On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing (1862), and The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868a, 1868b), and The Descent of Man (1871a, 1871b), to and including The Origin of Species (1872), the sixth and final edition of On the Origin of Species.
  71. Ellegård (p.31) stresses the fact that the direction of his classification with its apparent (exclusive) concentration on the issues of (i) religion vs. science and (ii) supernaturalism vs. naturalism was not due to the influence of any a priori considerations on his part, but were entirely reflecting
    (a) how the problem appeared to those at the time,
    and, from his own research,
    (b) "the actual positions taken in the contemporary press".
  72. Given that their views tended to be formed from what they read in the popular press (or what they were told from the pulpit) rather than, that is, from reading the most up-to-date and most relevant books, pamphlets, journal articles, and professional society proceedings "by and large, the lower the educational standard, the less was the inclination to accept the Darwinian doctrines"; (Ellegård, p. 33) and, moreover, "the public of the mass circulation organs had few other sources of information open to them on these matters" and from this, if they were to have any opinion on these matters at all, there would be "little reason" for them to differ from that which the press of their choice had provided for them (p.34).
  73. Ellegård, pp. 35–36.
  74. Ellegård, pp. 31–33.
  75. Ellegård, pp. 36–38.
  76. Ellegård, p. 30.
  77. Mozley (1967), p. 430.
  78. Although those holding this position "recognized, on geological evidence, that the further back we go in time, the simpler and the less differentiated are the forms of organic life that we find", these "more differentiated forms" were not, they thought, descendants of some earlier, "less differentiated" form, but had "come into being in some wholly mysterious way, best characterized by the word creation" (Ellegård, p. 30).
  79. Whilst those taking this position "admitted the efficacy of Natural Selection for a considerable amount of specific differentiation ... it still included a teleological element as an indispensable part of the explanation of organic evolution ... referring to unknown factors in order to explain the more important evolutionary steps" (Ellegård, p. 31).
  80. Observing that although his five-position categorization was "sufficient to define the degree of acceptance of the Darwinian theory in its application to the organic world below man", and because "some people were prepared to accept the Descent theory for the animal and vegetable kingdoms, while rejecting it for the human race" and, even if they accepted Darwin's theory in relation to "man's body", "the majority refused to admit the same for man's immortal soul, which was to be regarded as a miraculous gift from heaven" Ellegård (pp. 31–32) noted that "a separate and additional classification must be used to cover the development of Man"; namely, positions which he identified as:
    (1) Separate Creation (p.  31): "took the whole of man, body and soul, to be created independently of the rest of the organic world";
    (2) Mental Creation (pp. 31–32): " that man's body had evolved in the same manner as that of the lower animals, while his soul had been created separately"; and
    (3) Development (p. 32): "admitted the gradual evolution of both body and soul".
    And from this, he remarks (p.32) that (1) tended to go with (A), (B), or (C), that (2) tended to go with (D), and that (3) tended to go with either (D) or (E).
  81. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article239289190 "Royal Society"
  82. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238487562 "Royal Society"
  83. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13588037 "Royal Society of New South Wales"
  84. Moyal & Marks (2019), p. 22.
  85. Stephens, 2013.
  86. Nancarrow (2009), p. 146.
  87. Heaton (1879), p. 108.
  88. Riley (2016), p. 30.
  89. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4787709 Shipping Intelligence: Arrived: October 15"
  90. "The Revenue, from New York, has had a good run from that port. She brings a large number of apparently very respectable people, attracted hither by the fame of our gold fields": "Melbourne Shipping", The (Sydney) Empire, (23 October 1852), p. 2.
  91. Riley (2016).
  92. "Mr. Krefft's drawings have a special interest, as they are illustrations from the life of some of the more curious animals, &c., of the country, taken during the late expedition to the Murray, with Mr. Blandowski. The most striking is that of a native corroboree, at Gall Gall, and of the rare animal, the chæropus, about which there has of late been so much controversy." (Review of the Exhibition at Anon (1858, p. 105).)
  93. Allen (2006), p. 31.
  94. Kean (2009).
  95. Allen (2006), p. 34.
  96. The Museum was established in 1854, the same year as the Melbourne Public Library, now known as State Library Victoria.
  97. Menkhorst, 2009, p. 63.)
  98. Iredale & Whitley (1932); Allen, 2009b.
  99. https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/landscape/exploration/display/32562-150th-anniversary-of-william-blandowski%60s-expedition/photo/2 "150th Anniversary of William Blandowski's Expedition"
  100. Whitley (1958), p. 23.
  101. The museum was established in late 1853 ("Legislative Council: Museum of Natural History", 27 September 1853), p. 5), just two years after the separation of Victoria from New South Wales in 1851.
  102. Krefft identified ten categories of specimens: "stones, fossils & sundry specimens" (358 items); "insects" (4,202 items); "shells" (8,484 items); "fishes" (247 items); "frogs" (199 items); "snakes" (68 items); "lizards" (535 items); "turtles" (64 items); "birds" (2,335 items), and "quadrupeds" (742 items).
  103. Note that a number of the available catalogue numbers have zero content (see Krefft, 1858, passim).
  104. See: for instance Allen (2006), and Kean (2009).
  105. Public Notice: Philosophical Society of Victoria", The Argus, (8 August 1854), p.8.
  106. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/154864082 "Museum of Natural History"
  107. Wilkinson (1996), p. 2.
  108. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article154867700 "The National Museum"
  109. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article7134274 "Public Museum"
  110. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4829525 "Museum of Natural History"
  111. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article171431226 "The Museum (A Hue and Cry)"
  112. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article171431241 "The Raid of the Museum"
  113. Knapman (2012), p. 85.
  114. Paszkowski (1969).
  115. Paszkowski (1967), pp. 162–163.
  116. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13040231 "Shipping: Arrivals—May 6"
  117. As van Leeuwen (1998, p. 16) notes, "Krefft's timely gift of seashells to augment Denison's growing collection ... would further have endeared him to the Governor-General."
  118. One of his referees was Melbourne's Frederick McCoy (Knapman, 2012, p. 97).
  119. van Leeuwen (1998).
  120. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166691208 "The Late Mr. S.R. Pittard"
  121. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13061450 "The Late Mr. S.R. Pittard"
  122. "When Krefft took up his appointment in June 1860, the Australian Museum – which had opened to the public in 1857 – comprised a single exhibition gallery and several floors of staff living quarters." (Davidson, 2017, p. 73).
  123. Macinnes (2012), p. 108.
  124. See: Sellers (1980); Hart & Ward, D.C. (1988); Peale (1800); and Peale (1804).
  125. One of the texts displayed at Peale's Museum (Peale, 1804, p. 2) was that from Job 12: 7–10:
    "But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind."
  126. Brigham (1996).
  127. van Leeuwen, Michael (1998, p. 19), citing the entry in the Museum's Minute Book of the Trustees dated 5 September 1861.
  128. "Given the almost instinctive reluctance of the Trustees to appoint a non-Briton to the position … it is almost inconceivable that Krefft could have won this position in open competition [in 1861], as he was not a member of the charmed circle around William Sharp Macleay in the colony and Richard Owen in England. There is no doubt that the Trustees intended his tenure in the position as a temporary measure only, designed merely to "hold the fort" until a suitable gentleman could be found." (van Leeuwen, 1998, pp. 19–20.)
  129. "May 31. One of the appointments of the month was that of Mr. Gerard to be Curator of the Australian Museum. This gentleman has performed the duties of the office since the death of Mr. Pittard.": at "Chronicle of Occurrences, 1864", The Sydney Morning Herald, (31 December 1864), p. 4.
  130. In relation to later issues relating to his (figurative and virtual) removal from office in 1874, it is significant that the delay in his official appointment was no reflection on Krefft's fitness to occupy the position. It was entirely due to the time taken to resolve dispute between the Museum's Trustees and the New South Wales' government about which of the two of them should be his official employer. Eventually, it was decided that he was an employee of the New South Wales' government.
  131. See news item on Krefft's appointment and attesting to his value to the Museum: "The Australian Museum", The Sydney Morning Herald, (13 May 1864), p. 2.
  132. Krefft (1866).
  133. Anon (1870).
  134. Krefft (1870f).
  135. Dawson (1985), pp. 56–59.
  136. From which, perhaps, nearly twenty extremely productive and influential years were taken by his controversial dismissal in 1874 at the age of 44.
  137. "In the Australian colonies in 1870, Darwin's radical rethinking of the origin of species was still regarded with general suspicion and antagonism." (Finney, 2022, p. 3).
  138. Two of Darwin's most strident Australian critics were the devout Irish Catholic Professor Frederick McCoy, Director of the National Museum of Victoria, and the Evangelical Anglican Bishop of Melbourne Charles Perry (see, for instance, Anon (1861), Anon (1869), and Mozley (1967), p. 428).
  139. For instance, according to Bennett (2004, p. 139), until the late 1890s, typical "collections of Aboriginal materials … especially weaponry" on display in Australian museums presented essentially as cabinets of curiosities reflecting "the dynamics of the colonial frontier" "were primarily trophy collections, powerful symbols of the capacity to dispossess and displace the colonised”; and it was not really until the (1899) appointment of Baldwin Spencer as director of the National Museum of Victoria that this "anti-evolutionary tide" within the museums’ administrators and curators began to turn, and "evolutionary displays" began to routinely emerge in their place.
  140. Butcher (1992), p. 53.
  141. Stephens (2007), p. 309.
  142. In its review ("The Animal Kingdom in Tasmania", The Sydney Mail, (20 June 1868), p. 3) of Krefft's (1868c), Notes on the Fauna of Tasmania, the Sydney Mail characterized Krefft as "the talented and indefatigable, curator and secretary of the Australian Museum, (whose assiduity in the cause of science has already been fully recognised in other countries besides these colonies, the immediate sphere of his labours)".
  143. Hoare, 1971 and 1976.
  144. Stephens (2007), p. 305.
  145. See, for instance, "The Australian Museum", The Sydney Morning Herald, (30 September 1868), p.5, (1 October 1868), p.5, (5 October 1868), p.5, and (22 October 1868), p.5.
  146. For a detailed discussion of the economic, administrative, and scientific issues facing museums in Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Perth, as well as in Sydney in the 19th-century, see Kohlsted (1983).
  147. "Going back to the Renaissance Cabinet of Curiosities, collections of the rare and the wonderful have long served as a means to demonstrate one's elite social status, functioning as material evidence of wealth, power, and mastery. However, the long nineteenth century saw museums became increasingly open, accessible, and responsible to an emerging conception of the democratic citizen. This gave rise to a conflict between two very different conceptions of what museums ought to accomplish. Should they serve a forum in which a culture's core values are debated, contested, and at times even overturned, or a temple for the veneration of sacrosanct objects, ideas, and persons?" (Rieppel, 2019, p. 46.)
  148. See: "An Act to Establish the Smithsonian Institution, 1846", at The Smithsonian Institution Archives.
  149. For a detailed, extended account of the capacious "National Cabinet of Curiosities", the relevant Congressional legislation, and the eventual transferral of the Cabinet's custody to the Smithsonian, see Goode (1901), pp. 112–156.
  150. Gray (1864), "Presidential Address", p. 86.
  151. At the time of his address (1864) Gray had already been an employee of the British Museum for 40 years, and had been its Keeper of the Zoology Department for 24 years.
  152. Gray (loc. cit.) elaborated further: "Now, it appears to me that, in the desire to combine these two objects, which are essentially distinct, the first object, namely the general instruction of the people, has been to a great extent lost sight of and sacrificed to the second, without any corresponding advantage to the latter, because the system itself has been thoroughly erroneous. The curators of large museums have naturally, and, perhaps, properly, been men more deeply devoted to scientific study than interested in elementary instruction, and they have consequently done what they thought best for the promotion of science by accumulating and exhibiting on the shelves or in the open cases of the museum every specimen which they possess, without considering that by so doing they were overwhelming the general visitor with a mass of unintelligible objects, and at the same time rendering their attentive study by the man of science more difficult and onerous than if they had been brought into a smaller space and in a more available condition."
  153. Almost half of his presentation involved three lengthy quotations from Gray’s just-published pamphlet; viz., Krefft (1868b), pp. 16–18, 19-20, 22–21, quoting Gray (1868), pp. 4–6, 12-13, 1–3, respectively.
  154. "The "new museum idea" encouraged curators to design galleries and carefully select objects for display so as to actively and explicitly teach visitors, rather than simply (and passively) allowing them access to the entirety of the collection and expecting them to engage in self-directed study." (Anderson, 2020, p. 100. emphasis in original).
  155. Similar views in relation to displays were expressed by Edward Forbes, of the Museum of Practical Geology in his 1853 lecture; although he was far less concerned with the education of the public, and was far more concerned with the goal of inculcating nationalistic pride in Britain and the British Empire (see: Forbes, 1953).
  156. "Though the first duty of museums is, without question, to preserve the evidence upon which the history of mankind and the knowledge of science is based, any one acquainted with the numerous succession of essays, addresses, lectures, and papers, which constitute the museum literature of the last thirty years, must recognise the gradual development of the conception that the museum of the future is to have for its complete ideal, not only the simple preservation of the objects contained in it, but also their arrangement in such a manner as to provide for the instruction of those who visit it. The value of a museum will be tested not only by its contents, but by the treatment of those contents as a means of the advancement of knowledge." (Flower, 1893, p. 22)
  157. In his Principles of Museum Administration (1895, p. 42), George Brown Goode, noting that "for any science ... a synoptical series with a full complement of descriptive labels ... forms an elementary manual, the labels forming the text, the specimens the illustrations", and observing that "a collection of this kind in a Natural History Museum may either illustrate the principles of classification and phylogeny, those of geographical distribution, or may deal with the problems of comparative morphology", remarked that "their purpose is to teach some special lesson by means of a small or complete series of specimens, arranged, labeled and provided with all possible illustrative accessories".
  158. "The new museum idea [is] that the museum is not a conservative but a progressive educational force, that it has a teaching quality or value peculiar to itself, that the museum succeeds if it teaches, fails partially if it merely amuses or interests people and fails entirely if it simply mystifies. The old museum idea was that of a sanctuary or refuge, a safe deposit vault for curious, rare, or beautiful objects which might be lost or destroyed; the ignorant visitor was tolerated rather than attracted, the curator was a keeper, not a teacher." (Osborn, 1912, p. 494)
  159. "The interest which all classes take in Natural History, has gradually changed the old fashioned curiosity shops of fifty years ago, into useful Museums where rational amusement, combined with instruction, is offered to the mass of the people, and where students have every opportunity to examine and study the specimens, of which the Museum consists." (Krefft, 1868b, p. 15)
  160. "[Krefft's] view stood in stark contrast to the way the trustees had not only established but wished to continue administering the Australian Museum, which had long served their own interests and maintained their social status in a class system that had been transplanted from Britain to colonial New South Wales. The distinction between Krefft's ambitions and those of his masters was as much an issue of who – or, more specifically, what type of person – should be in charge of the museum and how it should be run." (Davidson, 2017, p. 95.)
  161. For more on the nature and ramifications of this sort of "vision" in the USA, see: Rader & Cain, 2014, passim.
  162. See, for instance, Anon (1868b, and 1868c).
  163. From the Greek συνοπτικός, synoptikos, 'seeing everything together'.
    According to Aristides Brezina, of the Natural History Museum at Vienna, museum collections were of two different kinds:
    (a) systematic collections, which "secure in due time and preserve as great and complete a variety of the material as possible", and
    (b) synoptical collections, which "illustrate as fully as possible all ways in which the matter may be considered". (Brezina, 1904, p. 211)
  164. "An inward conviction of the fitness of things soon forces itself on the observant mind when "the right man is in the right place", and the state of the Australian Museum, since the curatorship of Mr. Krefft, is an evidence of the fact. The late Dr. Pittard recognized the slough of despond into which the institution had drifted. By his talents and energy, his popular lectures, and his endeavours to organize and utilize what was previously merely a chamber of curiosities, effected much for the museum; but, what was still more valuable, he recognized the qualifications of Mr. Krefft, who was appointed his assistant. The latter, however, was of a far more practical nature, and the alterations and improvements effected since his accession to his present office, have, notwithstanding very tardy pecuniary aid, completely metamorphosed the institution, and rendered it one that will, by its many specimens, and the care and accuracy of arrangement, vie with almost any provincial collections as a school of natural as a school of natural history" (Anon, 1871).
  165. A Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society of London (C.M.Z.), and the brother-in-law of Sir Daniel Cooper.
  166. See, for instance, the annual reports of 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, and 1870, etc.
  167. "The Victorian era heralded an age of transformation in which momentous changes in the field of natural history coincided with the rise of new visual technologies. Concurrently, different parts of the British Empire began to more actively claim their right to being acknowledged as indispensable contributors to knowledge and the progress of empire" (Davidson, 2017, n.p.)
  168. Finney (2019a).
  169. "Photography could record specimens as they arrived at the Museum, capturing true-to-life texture, size and shapes before the detailed work of taxidermy began.... Held in the Museum's archives, the photographs [present] a natural history rogues' gallery: dozens of animals captured, mugshot style, against a white-sheet backdrop. The photos were taken in and around the Museum, mostly in the courtyards and gardens to best exploit the precious light required by the photographers' rudimentary cameras" (Finney, 2019b, pp. 25–26).
  170. Essentially due to their collective lack of scientific credentials and/or social standing (Davidson, 2017, p. 68).
  171. The notion of a boundary object was positioned by Star and Griesemer in their 1989 article about the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley namely, "an object which lives in multiple social worlds and which has different identities in each" (1989, p. 409) and, it is important to note that, in doing so, they gave the "boundary object" notion a name, but they did not invent it.
    The value of their terminological innovation is that, ever since then, its referent, within a particular context, could be unequivocally named, identified, investigated, productively discussed, and generally understood by all concerned. Their (metaphorical) sociological notion of a boundary object namely, "objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites" (1989, p. 393) is entirely symmetrical with:
    (a) the linguistic category of simplified pidgin or creole language which allows effective communication between speakers of two mutually unintelligible languages, and
    (b) the scientific/technological concept of a trading zone a metaphor derived from anthropological studies of how different cultures are able to exchange goods, despite their differences in language and culture that is, a "neutral" space wherein scientists holding different disciplinary mind-sets are able to collaborate and/or "trade" expertise and ideas with one another, despite their disciplinary differences and conceptual orientations.
  172. See Cross, et al. (2018, p. 641, Fig.5) for Agassiz's own illustration of the teeth plates from which his description was derived.
  173. Anderson (1939), pp. 2–23.
  174. Which, also, clearly explains the significance of Agassiz's post-1870 remark in a letter to Krefft: "my fossil sharks are sharks no longer" (Heaton, 1879, p. 109).
  175. Whitley (1929), p. 363.
  176. Krefft (1870c), p. 223.
  177. In relation to average size and weight of the fish, retired Queensland banker, Daniel O'Connor (1826–1916), reported (1896, p. 102) that the 109 specimens he had captured in 1896, "ranged between thirty-three [84cm] and forty-five inches [114cm] in length, and were from nine [4kg] to fourteen pounds [6 kg] in weight".
  178. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3670580 "The late Mr. M'Cord, M.L.A."
  179. Finney (2022), pp. 1–2.
  180. Robin, 2005, p. 104.
  181. Whitley (1927), p. 50.
  182. Finney (2022, p. 2) speaks of "the genius of Krefft who recognized the fish's "true character" by seeing it as a "missing link", a revelation that had apparently eluded all others and was only possible with Krefft's particular blend of scientific knowledge, local field experience, and imagination".
  183. The allusion to the Queensland lungfish as a "living fossil" is widespread: see, for instance, p. 214 of Arthington (2009).
  184. Walpole, 1840/1906, pp. 365–366.
  185. There was a second letter from Krefft, ten days later (i.e., Krefft, 1870b, that supplied additional information on the matter.
  186. Macinnes (2012), p. 113.
  187. Intercolonial Exhibition (1871), p. 88.
  188. Clarke, 1871:, .
  189. Lockyer (1889), p. 3.
  190. According to Denison (1860), Mozley (1986), Butcher (1992, 1999), van Leeuwen (1998), Moyal & Marks (2019), etc. these, among many others, included: Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria, and President of the Royal Society of Victoria; John Bleasdale, Roman Catholic priest, and President of the Royal Society of Victoria; Charles Coxen, co-founder, honorary curator, secretary, and trustee of the Queensland Museum (and brother-in-law of John Gould); Sir William Denison, Governor of New South Wales; George Halford, Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology at Melbourne University; William Macleay, pastoralist, politician, naturalist, and trustee of the Australian Museum; Frederick McCoy, Professor of Natural Science at Melbourne University, curator of Victoria’s Museum of Natural History; Charles Moore, botanist, and director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney; Charles Perry, Anglican Bishop of Melbourne; Simon Rood Pittard, Krefft's predecessor at the Australian Museum; David Syme, proprietor of The Age; Julian Tenison-Woods, Roman Catholic priest, geologist, and President of the Linnean Society of New South Wales; Ferdinand von Mueller, Victorian Government Botanist and director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne; and William Woolls, Anglican cleric and botanist.
  191. In addition to Krefft's "native German", Whitley (1958, p. 21) notes that (a) he "also knew Latin, French and Dutch", and (b) that his English publications were written in "perfect English".
  192. "The Flora of Australia has been justly regarded as the most remarkable that is known, owing to the number of peculiar forms of vegetation which that continent presents. So numerous indeed are the peculiarities of this Flora, that it has been considered as differing fundamentally, or in almost all its attributes, from those of other lands; and speculations have been entertained that its origin is either referable to another period of the world's history from that in which the existing plants of other continents have been produced, or to a separate creative effort from that which contemporaneously peopled the rest of the globe with its existing vegetation; whilst others again have supposed that the climate or some other attribute of Australia has exerted an influence on its vegetation, differing both in kind and degree from that of other climates." (Hooker, 1859, p.xxvii)
  193. Hooker was "the first man of science anywhere to embrace Darwinism" (Endersby (2008), p. 316)
  194. Hooker (1859, p. ii): "In the Introductory Essay to the New Zealand Flora [viz., Hooker, 1853], I advanced certain general propositions as to the origin of species, which I refrained from endorsing as articles of my own creed: amongst others was the still prevalent doctrine that these are, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, created as such, and are immutable. In the present Essay I shall advance the opposite hypothesis, that species are derivative and mutable; and this chiefly because, whatever opinions a naturalist may have adopted with regard to the origin and variation of species, every candid mind must admit that the facts and arguments upon which he has grounded his convictions require revision since the recent [August 1858] publication by the Linnean Society of the ingenious and original reasonings and theories of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace.
    Further, there must be many who, like myself, having hitherto refrained from expressing any positive opinion, now, after a careful consideration of these naturalists' theories, find the aspect of the question materially changed, and themselves freer to adopt such a theory as may best harmonize with the facts adduced by their own experience."
  195. Including, for instance, 1871c, 1871d, 1871e, 1872b, 1873b, 1873c, 1874a, 1874d, 1875a, 1875b, 1875c, 1875d, etc.
  196. Responding to the Queensland naturalist, and honorary curator and trustee of the Queensland Museum, Charles Coxen's (1874) criticism of his support of Darwin and "Darwinism" and declaring that he was "not going [to enter] into a discussion of the "man and monkey business"" Krefft (1874c) reminded Coxen that his (Coxen’s) brother-in-law (John Gould) and Darwin were "close friends", and confirmed his (Krefft's) own "admiration for the clever reasoning of the greatest man of the age, Charles Darwin, Esq., F.R.S., a gentleman, a scholar, a good Christian, and a good father" and, further, observed that he thought Darwin to be "the stanchest protector of the lower animals, whom [Coxen] so dearly loves."
  197. https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8959.xml Darwin Correspondence Project: Letter no. 8959 (dated approx. 12 July 1873)
  198. Krefft, 1873e.
  199. And, as Ellegård (1958, p.19) notes, in such circumstances, "having no preconceived opinion or attitude, they would be all the more prone to accept the one presented to them by a source with which they were in general agreement on many other issues."
  200. Namely, the two articles he sent to Darwin with his letter.
  201. "According to [my] promise, I bring before your readers some of the scientific news received by the mail, though it is necessary to begin the account with a rather lengthy introduction. All the journals bristle with "evolutionary" (or revolutionary) discussion ... [and,] after this digression, I shall [now] try and explain what our men of science have done during the last twenty five years ... [and, moreover,] it is necessary that such a resumé should be given because almost every other book now published on Natural Sciences refers to some of the discoveries mentioned, and these discoveries, it is highly probable, have not penetrated to every place which the Sydney Mail makes bright once a week." (Krefft, 1873e).
  202. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108074471 "Death of Mr. G. Eld"
  203. https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9002.xml Darwin Correspondence Project: Letter no. 8959 (from Kreff, dated 8 August 1873)
  204. "The last 25 years" was suggested by the fact that Cohn's address was delivered during the celebration of Heinrich Göppert's (then) 25 years' presidency of the .
  205. Namely, Anon (1872), Anon (1873a), and Anon (1873b).
  206. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article162480006 Krefft, G., "Natural History: The Uncommon Frog"
  207. The first being: Krefft, G., "Natural History: The Reptiles of Australia: Recent and Fossil", The Sydney Mail, (17 October 1874), p. 497.
  208. The last being: Krefft, G., "Natural History: Remarks on the Alteration of Organisms", The Sydney Mail, (26 June 1875), p. 809.
  209. Robin (2000) noting that, Krefft, whilst still the Museum's Curator, had already "[run] foul of anti-evolutionary forces within his Trustees", observed that "the bitter battle that ensued after Krefft's dismissal put paid to further research papers from the Australian scientist most sympathetic to Darwinian evolution." (emphasis added: N.B. The journal article quoted does not have page numbers.)
  210. MacLeod (2009), pp.142-149.
  211. "The casus belli, now long forgotten, turned on the allegation that Krefft had mishandled a theft that had occurred in the Museum." (MacLeod, 2009, p.145).
  212. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107140425 "News of the Day"
  213. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196747413 New South Wales"
  214. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article253225939 "Masters Mastered"
  215. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15359658 "Late Mr. G. Masters: Curator of Macleay Museum"
  216. See, also: "District Court: Small Debts Jurisdiction: Krift[sic] v. Blandowski"], The Argus, (11 March 1858), p. 7.

    Natural historian, museum curator and administrator

    Krefft returned to Australia from his sojourn in Germany, with brief stays en route at the Cape of Good Hope and Adelaide, arriving in Sydney on 6 May 1860.[116]

    In June 1860, on the recommendation of Governor Sir William Denison,[117] [118] he was appointed Assistant Curator to Simon Rood Pittard (1821–1861)[119] [120] [121] at the Australian Museum,[122] "much to the annoyance of the museum trustees, who would have preferred someone with a formal degree".[123] Pittard, driven by his Anglo-Catholic, Puseyite views and following the practice of Charles Willson Peale at the Peale Museum, in Philadelphia[124] adorned the walls of the Museum with inscriptions of biblical texts.[125] [126] Less than three weeks after Pittard's death (in August 1861) the Trustees decided that these inscriptions were "[to] be removed, and that in future "no words be inscribed on the walls of the Board Room without the consent of the Trustees"."[127]

    Having performed all of the duties of the position since Pittard's death in August 1861, Krefft was eventually appointed Curator of the museum in May 1864.[128] [129] [130] [131] During his time at the Australian Museum, Krefft maintained a relationship with the Melbourne Museum, corresponding and exchanged specimens with Frederick McCoy, its Director. He also corresponded with a wide range of eminent overseas naturalists, including Charles Darwin, A.K.L.G. Günther, and Sir Richard Owen in the UK; L.J.R. Agassiz in the USA; "and many learned German scientists". It is significant that Krefft's interactions were "informal communications with individuals rather than official dealings through government agencies, with the ensuing connections giving rise to further interactions with savants and museums in other centres of knowledge and power, including Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Sweden, Argentina, Canada, India and the United States, as well as Britain" (Davidson, 2017, p. 8).

    He was also responsible for arranging and cataloguing the Museum's collection of donated fossils, as well as those he had discovered in his own exploratory efforts in the field, such as the two important excavations of the fossil remains of mammals, birds, and reptiles he conducted in 1866 and 1869 at the Wellington Caves.[132] [133] [134] [135]

    Darwinism

    Krefft's scientific career[136] and, in particular, his entire professional life at the Australian Museum[137] was concurrent with and greatly influenced by the "Darwinian controversy" and its widespread ramifications;[138] not the least of which was the central question of which individual specimens should be exhibited (or not) in the Museum, and, if so, in what sort of order, and in which sort of way.[139]

    "The New Museum Idea"

    Krefft, who had returned to Australia in 1860 "with a comprehensive knowledge of the new approaches being adopted in Europe to the role and purpose of museums",[140] was "a dynamic figure who vigorously researched, wrote about and promoted the [Australian] Museum's collections".[141] [142]

    He served as curator at a time of significant culture change, both in terms of the place of science and scientific standards within the community,[143] and in terms of the embedded assumptions, foundation principles, and experimental strategies of science itself. With Krefft as its curator, and despite the resistance of its trustees, the museum was slowly shifting "from [being] a colonial offshoot of the British science establishment, managed by a group of gentleman naturalists, towards [becoming] an institution serving the needs of an increasingly independent and professional group of scientists".[144] [145] [146]

    Cabinets of curiosities

    See main article: Cabinet of curiosities.

    For at least two centuries British (and colonial) museums, clearly reflecting their Wunderkämmer/Cabinets of Curiosities heritage, had done little more than present "aimless collection[s] of curiosities and bric-à-brac, brought together without method or system of collections"; where, for instance, one of the most famous collections in "bygone days", that of the seventeenth century's Musæum Tradescantianum (the collection which later provided the nucleus for Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum), "was a miscellany without didactic value", "its arrangement was unscientific, and the public gained little or no advantage from its existence" (Lindsay, 1911, p. 60).[147]

    In August 1846, within the Act establishing the Smithsonian Institution,[148] was a provision transferring the custody of the United States' official National Cabinet of Curiosities,[149] that had been previously deposited in the US Patent Office Building, to the Smithsonian.

    Public museums

    Acknowledging the differences between a museum's research and public pedagogy functions, and expressing his hope that his colleagues would "heartily concur in doing all that is in our power to render [the British Museum] and other institutions conducive to the increase of the knowledge, the happiness, and the comforts of the people",[150] John Edward Gray, towards the end of his lengthy career as the Curator of the British Museum,[151] remarked that, in his view, "public museums" were meant to serve the dual purposes of "the diffusion of instruction and rational amusement among the mass of the people, and ... to afford the scientific student every possible means of examining and studying the specimens of which the museum consists".[152]

    In the 1860s, a time when "Colonial museums tended to exhibit specimens row upon row, and for the most part neglected to incorporate up-to-date techniques such as explanatory labels and habitat cases" (Sheets-Pyenson, 1988, p. 123), Gray's scientific position, his curatorial rationale, and his administrative approach were strongly supported by Krefft. Krefft, who was "devoted to the museum's interests", rather than to those of the trustees, had already begun separating his own museum's research collections from its exhibition collections, and had already adopted many of Gray's measures by the early 1860s.

    Having just received Gray's (1868) pamphlet in the mail, he emphasized in the presentation ("Improvements Effected in Modern Museums in Europe and Australia") he gave to the Royal Society of New South Wales on 5 August 1868 that his (Krefft's) ongoing efforts at the Australian Museum were made in the hope of changing it from being "one of the old curiosity shops of fifty years ago" into a "useful Museum" (Krefft, 1868b, p. 15). These curatorial aspirations were not unique to Krefft; they were entirely consistent with the world's best practice, as described by Gray, in relation to displaying exhibits and mounted specimens at the British Museum "to the best advantage, both for the student and for the general visitor" (Krefft, 1868b, p. 21).[153]

    The "new museum"

    In 1893, Sir William Henry Flower, labelled Gray's (1864) view "The New Museum Idea",[154] describing it as "the key-note of nearly all the museum reform of recent date", (Flower, 1893, pp. 29–30). Although these views were not unique to Gray,[155] it does seem that Gray's (1864) axiom had the widest dissemination over the ensuing years, was the most widely quoted and, therefore, can be said to have had the greatest influence influencing many world-wide, including Krefft, and in the UK, such as Flower, at the British Museum (see: Flower, 1898),[156] and in the US, such as G. Brown Goode at the Smithsonian Institution (see: Goode, 1895),[157] and Henry Fairfield Osborn, at the American Museum of Natural History (see, Osborn, 1912),[158] etc.

    In 1917, American museum director John Cotton Dana lamented the fact that there was still great room for improvement, noting that the best museum displays were to be found in department stores, rather than in museums of the day.

    Krefft's curatorial rationale

    Krefft actively promoted the concept of the museum as a popular institution appealing to a broader audience: that is, an establishment designed to provide experiences that engage, entertain, and educate all ages, economic groups, education levels, and social classes,[159] as well as being a place for the collection, preservation, and display of specimens, and the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge.[160] [161]

    Krefft's curatorial advocacy of the complete separation of the Museum's at-the-time confused and disordered collection into:[162]

    (a) the exhibition spaces and the ordered, comprehensive, displays for the public (known today as synoptical collections),[163] and

    (b) the (systematically housed elsewhere on the premises) specimens, catalogues, and other research material primarily intended for research, rather than display,[164] produced the on-going culture-clash with the (predominately expatriate) "gentlemen amateurs" among the Trustees including Dr. James Charles Cox, Edward Smith Hill,[165] Sir William John Macleay, Captain Arthur Onslow, and Alexander Walker Scott, who were collectors themselves, and were "building up [their own] private collections sometimes at the expense of the museum" that eventually led to Krefft's later (1874) dismissal.

    Lack of funding

    At the same time that Krefft was experiencing difficulties with his (anti-Darwinian) trustees in relation to matters of specimen display, classification, and presentation, the trustees, themselves, who operated under the provisions of the Australian Museum Act, 1853, continuously complained of the absence of appropriate government funding to allow, regardless of what material they might contain, the construction of the required number of display tables, display cases, and display cabinets.[166]

    Many of those annual reports also contain specific, urgent appeals for additional funding to allow the publication of various items, created by Krefft, that were, at the time, complete and printer-ready. An extended, critical press report in The Empire in 1868 noted ("This is surprising, and to be deplored") that, although Krefft had a "voluminous catalogue of the specimens contained in the library arranged for the printer" it appeared that "that there are no funds to enable the trustees to carry out this necessary matter".

    Photography

    One of Krefft's most important curatorial innovations was his introduction of photography a medium he had first encountered during his time with the Blandowski Expedition in 1856–1857 into the Australian Museum's practice.[167]

    Photography not only provided a valuable means through which the Museum's objects and collections could be documented, but also served to substantiate the veracity of Krefft's colonial observations, and enhance his (and the Museum's) international recognition overall, due to the fact that, unlike single physical specimens, the photographs could also be sent simultaneously to experts and centres of European and American scholarship other than just to London alone.

    Moreover, over time, photographs significantly reduced the need to send precious specimens and samples overseas to the detriment of the Museum's own collections:[168] see, for instance, the (1870) photograph of Krefft's first-ever Queensland lungfish specimen (at Finney, 2022, p. 6), and the four (1870) photographs of the specimen at various stages of its dissection by Krefft (at Finney, 2022, pp. 6–7).The thousands of meticulously arranged visual images on the glass plates that Krefft and his assistant, Henry Barnes, produced (over 15 years) through the collodion wet plate process, both on-site (at the museum)[169] and in-the-field, recording landscapes and people (on expeditions), demonstrated and validated Krefft's expertise to all and sundry.

    According to Davidson (2017, pp. 16, 57, 68), given the London's scientific elite's widespread prevailing mistrust of the observations and material evidence of the colonial explorers and naturalists,[170] Krefft's images not only provided "incontrovertible photographic evidence" of his claims for a specific item of interest, but also given the extremely wide range of disciplinary mindsets prevailing at the time served as (inclusive) "boundary objects": viz., entities that "facilitate[d] an ecological approach to knowledge making and sharing" by "provid[ing] connections between different individuals and groups who nevertheless might view them, interpret them, and use them in distinct ways, or for different aims" (p. 10).[171]

    The Queensland lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri)

    See main article: Australian lungfish.

    Louis Agassiz and the Chimaera

    In 1835, having examined teeth that had been extracted from the Rhaetian (latest stage of the Triassic) fossil beds of the Aust Cliff region of Gloucestershire in South West England, the Swiss natural historian Louis Agassiz had identified and described ten different species of a holotype (or "type specimen"), which he named ceratodus latissimus ('horned tooth' + 'broadest'),[172] and had supposed based upon the structure of their teeth plates resembling that of a Port Jackson shark[173] [174] that they were a kind of shark or ray, and from this, he had postulated, belonged to an order of the class of cartilaginous fishes (Chondrichthyes) collectively known as Chimaera.

    Gerard Krefft, William Forster, and the cartilaginous Burnett Salmon or barramunda

    Over the 1860s, Krefft's regular dinner companion, the pastoralist squatter and former Premier of New South Wales, William Forster, had often spoken of the Queensland fresh-water salmon with a cartilaginous backbone,[175] well known to the Queensland squatters as Burnett Salmon called "salmon" because of its pink, salmon-coloured flesh and its good eating or "barramunda" (N.B. not barramundi). On each occasion, Krefft expressed his view that Forster's claim of the existence of such a salmon was entirely mistaken.[176]

    January 1870

    In January 1870, Forster presented Krefft with an approx. 3 ft (92 cm) specimen[177] of the Burnett Salmon that had been sent to him [Forster] by his cousin, William Forster M'Cord.[178]

    It was the first complete specimen that Krefft had ever seen. From his detailed (and, perhaps, unique to Australia) familiarity with the relevant scientific literature, and from the specimen's unusual teeth, Krefft immediately "understood its enormous significance",[179] and recognized it as being something that "was halfway between dead (fossilised, like its nearest relatives) and alive (known to science)[180] and, thus, "a living example of [Agassiz's] Ceratodus, a creature, thought to have been like a shark, which had hitherto been known only from fossil teeth":[181] a parallel to the (1994) recognition of the true identity of the Wollemi pine as a "living fossil".[182]

    The lungfish is now widely recognized as a classic example of Darwin's "living fossils"[183] Huxley (1880, p. 660) noted that, "this wonderful creature [sc. ''Ceratodus''] seems contrived for the illustration of the doctrine of Evolution" and its recognition as such, by the sagacious Krefft, represents a classic example of one of Walpole's serendipitous discoveries: i.e., those made by "accident and sagacity",[184] in that:Krefft immediately announced his discovery in a letter to the Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, published on 18 January 1870 (1870a); and, in doing so, he also named the specimen:

    It is significant that, by announcing his discovery in the pages of a Sydney daily newspaper,[185] rather than in some "learned British journal ... Krefft was not only claiming the lungfish, [but] was also staking a claim for Australian scientific independence".[186] Krefft's discovery was specifically mentioned within the comments of Australian Museum trustee Rev. William Branwhite Clarke on the mineralogical and geological exhibits at the 1870 Intercolonial Exhibition, held in Sydney;[187] and, moreover, it was of such significance that the Exhibition's report also included a poem, highlighting Krefft's discovery, written by Clarke himself.[188]

    In November 1889, Norman Lockyer, the founding Editor of Nature, noted that Krefft's discovery of "the Dipnoous [viz., 'having both gills and lungs'] fish-like creature Ceratodus of the Queensland rivers" was "[one] of the more striking zoological discoveries which come within our [first] twenty years [of publication]".[189]

    Krefft's "Natural History" articles in The Sydney Mail

    In relation to Kreff't considerable contributions to "natural history" whilst serving as the Museum's curator, it is important to recognize that, over that time, rather than being disinterested in (or not entirely convinced by) Darwin's views on the progressive development of species, a wide range of influential individuals in Australia were implacably opposed to Darwin, Darwin's theories, and "Darwinism" in general.[190]

    George B. Mason and The Australian Home Companion and Band of Hope Journal

    The Australian Home Companion and Band of Hope Journal was a fortnightly temperance-oriented journal with a limited circulation (specifically aimed at young people) that only lasted for three years (1859–1861).

    Over the entire three years of the journal's existence, the wood engraver, George Birkbeck Mason, supplied a regular series of 49 wood-engravings (as "G. B. Mason"), along with brief companion articles (as "G.B.M."), under the title "Australian Natural History", which introduced various Australian animals and birds to its young readers. Mason's first article (on 2 July 1859) was on "The Ornithorhynchus; or Water Mole of Australia" (i.e., the Platypus), and his last (on 18 May 1861) was on the recently-introduced-to-Australia animal, the Llama.

    Krefft and The Sydney Mail

    One of Krefft's main objectives, as its curator, was to re-position the Australian Museum as a "forum of people's science" (Moyal, 1986, p. 99). Krefft recognized the economic, social, and educational value of a wider dissemination of an accurate, up-to-date knowledge and understanding of scientific matters (especially Australian natural history) to the emerging colony and its developing community.

    In the absence of funding for potential museum publications, and in pursuit of a wider dissemination of these scientific matters, it is significant that from March 1871 until June 1874 Krefft published more than one hundred and fifty, lengthy, once-a-week "Natural History" articles in The Sydney Mail a widely-read weekly magazine published every Saturday by The Sydney Morning Herald on an extremely wide range of relevant subjects (see: https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/category/newspapers?keyword=%22krefft%22,%20%22natural%20history%22&sortBy=dateAsc&l-decade=187&l-title=698), specifically directed at an educated Australian lay audience; rather than, that is, engaging with his well-informed fellow scientists.[191]

    Krefft's Enterprise

    In his first article (Krefft, 1871a) reflecting a view that had been expressed a decade earlier[192] by the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker[193] [194] Krefft noted that, although "few countries offer such a wide field to the student of nature as Australia", there were very few "handy books for the beginner" available in Sydney, "which has caused, in some measure, the apathy of the people to study our natural products". Moreover, he wrote, because "the most useful books" were little known, and given that many of those were "so expensive that they cannot be purchased, except by the wealthy", he proposed to present a series of articles on Australian natural history, with the hope that their aggregate would eventually be published as a complete work.

    Charles Darwin (naturalist)

    As part of Krefft's determination to disseminate up-to-date scientific knowledge, as reflected in the professional literature, a number of his Natural History articles[195] mention Darwin's matter-of-fact observations and opinions as an in-the-field naturalist:[196] including, for instance, comments such as:

    Support of Darwin, Darwinism, and Natural Selection

    By July 1873, according to his (12 July 1873) letter to Charles Darwin,[197] Krefft had become exasperated by the widespread resistance to Darwin's theories and observations (and, indirectly, also to those of Bishop Colenso); an unwillingness which, Krefft observed, was not only driven by the persistent outright misrepresentations of Darwin's works by certain prominent critics (such as Professor McCoy and Bishop Perry), but was also explained by the fact that the preponderance of those in Australia who were opposed to Darwin's "theories" had never read any of Darwin's works and (with no other sources of information to go by) were basing their steadfast adversarial positions entirely upon the supposed authority of others: "if ever there was a season when people flock round those who interpret the faith in which they were brought up, it is the present time, in Australia at least" (Krefft, 12 July 1873).[198] [199]

    Krefft wrote of the "dreadful [overall] ... ignorance of even well educated people", and the constant criticisms of Darwin's "theories" that were still being voiced in Melbourne, 13 years after the publication of Origins, by the devout Irish Roman Catholic Professor Frederick McCoy, Professor of Natural Science at the University of Melbourne, and the director of the National Museum of Victoria, and the Evangelical Anglican Bishop of Melbourne Charles Perry, as well as the recent (7 July 1873) well-attended "Noah’s Ark" lectures, that had been delivered in Sydney by the Melbourne-based Irish Jesuit, Joseph O'Malley, and chaired by the devout Irish Roman Catholic layman, Justice Peter Faucett of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

    In his letter to Darwin, noting that he "never meddles with religion", Krefft states that he deliberately avoided any reference to questions relating to the existence (or not) of the Abrahamic deity in his articles: "Of course I shall not deny the existence of a supreme superintendent or whatever people choose to call the power of nature as yet unknown to us otherwise rather [to his "astonishment"] religious papers will not like to print my remarks".

    July 1873

    In his quest to encourage people to read Darwin's works, and to present a summary of the relevant scientific advances in the field (as represented in the professional literature), Krefft published two important "Natural History" articles in July 1873[200] and, as was his habit,[201] Krefft took the position of presenting the latest views and opinions of others (for the edification of his readers), rather than expressing his own:

    "Remarks on New Creations"

    The first article, centred upon an objective discussion of the current developments in the scientific understanding of artificial selection and human evolution (contrasted with the supposed 'immutability of species'), only expressing Krefft's personal views towards the end of the article, when speaking of the "poor, ignorant, and superstitious" people, whose artistic representations of angels were "decidedly against the laws of nature".

    "Remarks on New Hypotheses"

    According to Krefft's postscript to his letter to Darwin, the second article was only published after significant censorship by the editor of the Sydney Mail, George Eld (1829–1895),[202] at the express (and extraordinary) instruction of John Fairfax, proprietor of the Sydney Mail, to remove Krefft's favourable references to Darwin and his works according to Krefft, despite being "rather a thorough believer in revealed Religion", Fairfax generally "allow[ed] me to give an opinion now and then as long as [I] do not come it too strong":[203] Consequently, rather than expressing his own views, opinions, and explanations of Darwin's work, as he had intended, three-quarters of Krefft's second article directly refers to the opinions expressed in a recent address, "The Progress of Natural Science During the Last Twenty-Five Years",[204] given at Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), by the University of Breslau's Professor Ferdinand Cohn in late 1872.[205] Krefft's direct quotations included:

    Post-dismissal

    Due to the distractions connected with the last stages of his disputes with the trustees of the Australian Museum, the last item he published whilst still Museum curator was on 27 June 1874.[206] Sixteen weeks later, following his separation from the Museum, he resumed his weekly articles,[207] and went on to publish another thirty-three "Natural History" articles over the next nine months.[208]

    Although Krefft produced more than 250,000 words in the more than 180 "Natural History" articles published over that four-year period, his hope of eventually producing an aggregated single work was never realized; no doubt mainly due to his dismissal from office having greatly limited his resources and significantly restricted his capacity to continue his dissemination enterprise.[209]

    Dismissal from office

    The Trustees controversially dismissed Krefft from his position of Curator in 1874.[210] [211]

    Krefft's assistant curator for the preceding decade, George Masters, had resigned in February 1874 in order "to become curator of the growing collection of Sir William Macleay" (Strahan, 1979, p. 135)[212] [213] [214] a collection which Masters continued to curate, once it was transferred to the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney, until his death in 1912.[215]

  217. A considerable amount: almost one and a half times the average yearly wage in 1873.
  218. "Krefft was absent from the Museum on [the day of the robbery], having gone to Botany Bay to arrange the preparation of the skeleton of a whale, leaving the attendant [John Adolphus] Thorpe and the messenger [Michael] O'Grady in charge. On his return [the next day], he found that the lid of an island case in what is now known as the Long Gallery had been lifted free by removal of the screws that held it down and that gold specimens valued at about £60 had been taken. Krefft notified the police and the investigating detective found that there was a possibility that the gold had been stolen at a time when O'Grady and Thorpe had both been absent from the gallery." (Strahan, 1979, p. 31)
  219. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article251603573 "Burglaries, Stealing from the Premises, &c."
  220. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223692665 "Reward Notice No.308
  221. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page27921557 "Burglaries, Stealing from the Premises, &c."
  222. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28403194 "The Australian Museum"
  223. "William Macleay and other trustees upbraided Krefft as though he had been responsible for the theft and in such a heated manner that it was almost impossible for [Krefft] to make any explanation." (Strahan, 1979, p. 31).
  224. Williams, Wüster & Fry (2006), p. 992.
  225. Kohlstedt draws attention to the "awkward" situation where "dual involvement" as a private natural scientist and a trustee of the museum "created a potential conflict of interest between their activity as private collectors eager to have the best specimens and their appointments as trustees of an institution which similarly sought such priority" (1983, p. 2).
  226. Strahan, 1979, p. 37.
  227. [Norman Lockyer]
  228. On 4 March 1874, in the earlier stages of the dispute, and in a private and confidential letter to Krefft (see: SLNSW, pp. 91–93), Henry Parkes, the Premier of New South Wales, stated unequivocally that he was fully confident in Krefft's qualification for the office he held at the Museum.
  229. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article253227133 "Petty Pranks of Scientific Pretenders"
  230. See Krefft's (1874) description of the internal barricades and the Museum's closure at Krefft, G., "Letter to the Editor", The (Sydney) Evening News, (6 July 1874). p. 3; and the Trustees' subsequent (April 1875) justification for the 1874 museum closure and the barricading of Krefft in the section in the Trustees report for the year 1874 dealing with the twelfth charge levelled against Krefft in July 1874 at "Australian Museum", The Sydney Morning Herald, (17 April 1875), p. 9.
  231. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107140039 "The Museum doors nailed up – The Police in Charge"
  232. "The Australian Museum – We are requested to mention that this institution is closed for a short time. Due notice will be given on its being re-opened.": "The Australian Museum". The Sydney Morning Herald, (6 July 1874), p. 4.
  233. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13347428 The Australian Museum
  234. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13339948 "Museum"
  235. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107146408 "The Australian Museum"
  236. The certificate was issued by Frederick Milford, M.D. (Heidelberg), M.R.C.S. (England), L.R.C.P. (London) Milford's obituary: Obituary: Dr. Milford, The Freeman's Journal, (9 August 1902), p. 19.
  237. Nancarrow (2007), p. 10.
  238. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13339745 "BIRTHS: KREFFT—July 2, at the Australian Museum, College-street, the wife of Gerard Krefft, of a daughter, stillborn"
  239. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107142630 "The Museum Difficulty"
  240. He had refused to offer any defence against the Trustees' allegations until he was shown the actual charges and the supposed supporting evidence.
  241. "As for Mr. Krefft, that jovial giant seems to have behaved throughout the trying scene of the expulsion from his house and home just as a jovial giant should, with wonderful good temper. To be sure it was four to one, two out of the four being professional pugilists, specially retained in compliment to the "giant's" proportions and presumed prowess, which might well have a wonderfully mollifying effect on the indignant courage even of a man-mammoth. But if the odds were great, the provocation was greater, and it is much to the credit of the curator that having a giant's strength, ho did not use it like a giant, but was content with such passive, inert resistance as some twenty stone [viz., 127kg] of very solid flesh was well able to present ..." ("Town Talk", The (Sydney) Evening News, (21 November 1874), p. 2.)
  242. In its brief report on the Krefft v. Hill case, The Riverine Grazier (25 November 1874, p.2) explained that Hill's reference to Krefft as "the giant" was due to the fact that Krefft was "a fine specimen of the Bismarck type".
  243. Luck (2014), p. 93.
  244. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article61020899 Law: Jury Court: Sittings for Trial of Causes: Krefft v. Hill
  245. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107146668 "The Museum Difficulty"
  246. Wooley & McKay (2018).
  247. Photographs of Krefft's chair (which is now on permanent display at the Australian Museum), can be seen at Power (2015) and at Taylor (2015).
  248. Krefft, G. (12 June 1876). Letter to the Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, p. 2.
  249. See also Krefft (1877).
  250. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13339796 "Legislative Assembly"
  251. See, for instance, the hostile contributions made in relation to Krefft in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly on 16 June 1874, by Macleay (Member for Murrumbidgee) and Onslow (Member for Camden) to the debate on the motion of Walter Cooper (Member for East Macquarie) in relation to "the condition and system of management of the Sydney Museum" (see: Legislative Assembly: The Sydney Museum, The Sydney Morning Herald, (17 July 1874), pp. 2—3).
  252. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224368072 "The Sydney Museum"
  253. For the Sydney Punch's satirical explanation of precisely how the (supposedly) powdered fossil specimen had been magically re-materialised, by Krefft, by uttering the magic word "Diprotodon!!" and revealing, with a flourish of his magic cloth, that the powder from the box beneath his left foot had been transformed into the original complete jaw bone, see: (Scott, Montague, "DIPROTODON!!", Sydney Punch, (26 June 1874), p. 5.)
  254. In fact, as MacLeod (2009, p.146) notes, the item that was broken was a plaster cast of the jaw bone, that had been intended to become part of the Museum's collection, and was not the original bone, which was, indeed, sent off to Owen entirely unbroken and intact.
  255. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article61021023 "Law: Jury Court: Sittings for Trial of Causes: Krefft v. Hill"
  256. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13348647 Law: Jury Court
  257. https://books.google.com/books?id=jyJCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA286 Fitzhardinge & Paterson (1877), p.286.
  258. See also: "Law: Supreme Court: Before Mr. Justice Cheeke and juries of four: Krefft v. Hill", The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, (21 November 1874), p. 650.
  259. See: "Supreme Court: New Trial Motion: Krefft v. Hill”, The (Sydney) Evening News, (9 September 1875) p. 3; "Supreme Court: Sitting in Banco: Krefft v. Hill”, The (Sydney) Evening News, (10 September 1875) p. 3; and Fitzhardinge & Paterson (1877), passim.
  260. https://books.google.com/books?id=jyJCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA295 Fitzhardinge & Paterson (1877), p. 295.
  261. https://books.google.com/books?id=jyJCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA301 Fitzhardinge & Paterson (1877), p. 301.
  262. https://books.google.com/books?id=jyJCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA303 Fitzhardinge & Paterson (1877), p. 303.
  263. Of the four Supreme Court Judges, only three (Martin, Hargrave, and Faucett) were available, because the fourth, Cheeke, "was in England on Leave of absence" (Fitzhardinge & Paterson (1877), p. 280..
  264. https://books.google.com/books?id=jyJCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA304 Fitzhardinge & Paterson (1877), p. 304.
  265. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70610494 "Supreme Court: Tuesday November 13: Krefft v. The Trustees of the Australian Museum"
  266. Macinnes, 2012, p. 114.
  267. Namely, two years' arrears of his annual salary of £500 until his dismissal was finally confirmed by the governor-in-council in July 1876.
  268. Krefft's Few Letters and Testimonials from distinguished Men of Science (1876), was published in anticipation of the parliamentary investigation. It included commendations/testimonials from John Gould (dated 10 February 1859); Frederick McCoy (6 June 1860); Simon Rood Pittard (6 June 1861); Albert Günther (19 March 1864); Charles Darwin (17 February 1873); Richard Owen (13 April 1874); Charles Wyville Thomson (21 April 1874); and Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm (1 May 1874).
  269. Essentially, in accepting the restoration of his £1,000 lost salary, Krefft had to renounce (a) his claim for compensation (for, among other things, "the expense [incurred] in procuring another residence for himself and his family" (Fitzhardinge & Paterson (1877), p.280)), and (b) his claim to the Museum's curatorship ("Intercolonial News", The Queenslander, (16 December 1876), p.11).
  270. "In the Supreme Court, on Tuesday [5 December 1876], an application on the part of Mr. Krefft for a mandamus to compel the Colonial Treasurer to pay him the sum of £1000 voted by the Assembly last session was refused unanimously by the Chief Justice [viz., [[James Martin (premier)|Sir James Martin]]] and Judges [John Fletcher] Hargrave and [Peter] Faucett. The money, though placed on the Estimates to meet Mr. Krefft's claim for back salary, was included by the Appropriation Act in the general sum for the Museum; and, as there was nothing in the Act to direct the Treasurer to pay it over to Mr. Krefft, there was no legal obligation resting upon the Treasurer to pay it which Mr. Krefft had a right to call upon the Court to enforce." "Mr. Krefft and the Government", The Sydney Mail, (9 December 1876), p. 752, emphasis added to original.
  271. See the Public Notice of the auction of Krefft's furniture and effects: "Auction Sales", The Sydney Morning Herald, (30 July 1880), p. 7.
  272. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13467031 "Insolvency Meetings"
  273. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107211695 Death of Gerard Krefft
  274. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107211704 "Deaths: Krefft"
  275. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161882007 "The Late Gerard Krefft"
  276. See tombstone at "Gerard Krefft", Find a Grave.
  277. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article241320687 "Lounger"
  278. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238300767 "The Late Mr. Krefft"
  279. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107210764 "Town Talk (Obituary)"
  280. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13475885 "Obituary: Gerard Krefft"
  281. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70953091 "Obituary: Mr. Gerard Krefft"
  282. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161882007 "The Late Gerard Krefft"
  283. Web site: Plate – Diamond snake, Morelia spilotes . Helena Forde . Museums Victoria Collections . Museums Victoria . 2020-05-07.
  284. " Mr. Krefft's book is illustrated by 12 carefully executed lithographs from drawings by two sisters, Miss Harriet Scott, and Mrs. Edward Forde, daughters of Mr. A.M. Scott M.A. and the printer and engraver have co-operated with the author and the fair artists to produce a work which is both a valuable contribution to science and a credit to New South Wales." (The Snakes of Australia, The Australasian, (4 June 1870), p. 8)
  285. Mozley (1967).
  286. Moyal & Marks (2019).
  287. See the details of the correspondence exchanges on various subjects between the two at the Darwin Correspondence Project.
  288. Krefft wrote to Darwin on 22 October 1874, following his dismissal from office, seeking Darwin's support; Darwin eventually replied enclosing a postal order for £5 with his letter that, due to his ill health, he was unable to organise a subscription to raise funds for Kreff.
  289. Note that, despite Darwin's specific reference (https://archive.org/details/descentofmansele01darw/page/62/mode/1up) to Büchner's opinion, there is no trace of any such statement in either the French translation (https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_eFvPAAAAMAAJ/page/n151/mode/2up) to which Darwin refers, or the German original (https://archive.org/details/sechsvorlesungen00bchn/page/190/mode/2up) of the Büchner work cited by Darwin.
  290. Heaton (1879), p. 108.
  291. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60859383 "Honorary Scientific Distinction"
  292. Krefft, 1876, p. 1; Heaton, 1879, p. 108.
  293. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13178517 "Notes of the Week: From 2 July to 9 July"
  294. Although this "fact" is recorded in nearly every English-language biography of Krefft, the awarding institution is never identified. His German-language biography in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (i.e., Zimmermann, 1906, p. 374) also records that he received an honorary doctorate (Ehrendoktor), but fails to record the name of the institution involved. Given the overall precision and level of detail in Heaton's (1879) biography, and given that Heaton's work was published in Sydney, and given that Heaton's work was published two years before Krefft's death, it seems entirely possible that the source of the "fact" in question might have been a very-much-alive Krefft, and to have been personally delivered to Heaton by Krefft himself.
  295. Anon (1868a).
  296. Brainwood (2014).
  297. Although the contemporary newspaper report (Anon, 1868a) identified the mongoose as an Egyptian mongoose (herpestes ichneumon), later accounts, perhaps based upon stronger historical records (e.g., Brainwood, 2014), identify it as a "Ceylon mongoose" (urva edwardsii lanka).
  298. See, also, Kean (2013), p. 120.
  299. Beolens, Watkins, and Grayson (2011).
  300. Cremona, et al. (2020).
  301. Web site: Krefftberget (Svalbard) . . 4 April 2016.
  302. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/25897351 "Schedule 'B' National Memorials Ordinance 1928–1972: Street Nomenclature: List of Additional Names with Reference to Origin: Division of Florey: Krefft Street"

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