Negotiating botanical collections

Dr Johann Preiss in Germany and Western Australia

Featured in

  • Published 20200726
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-50-4
  • Extent: 304pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

IT IS NOT widely known that many Australian colonial natural history collections are represented in German museums and herbaria, nor that there are initiatives to transform these artefacts of colonial heritage and science back into objects from living cultures with living custodians and their own stories to tell.

Dr Johann August Ludwig Preiss (1811–1883) played a significant role in this evolving story as the first professional botanist to collect systematically in the Colony of Western Australia from 1838 to 1842. His collections of flora and fauna were pivotal in opening this globally significant region of biodiversity to the world – and he beat the British at their own game by bringing their new colony’s botanical wonder to scientists, nurserymen and gardeners in Europe. Despite his unusually long sojourn collecting in Western Australia, Preiss has been largely forgotten – unlike his contemporary, the naturalist and explorer Ludwig Leichhardt (1813–1848), well known for his work in northern and central Australia and his ill-­fated 1848 expedition to cross the continent; and the globally active science visionary Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), whose birth anniversaries were celebrated in Germany and Australia in 2013 and 2019 respectively. Preiss held no important posts in exploration, science or public office and left only a small selection of archived letters and some strangers’ impressions. So, we are left to speculate about the negative spaces between the known fragments of Preiss’s life and the agents – human and non-­human – of the worlds he moved through.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Ancestors’ words

EssayNO ONE WAS surprised when, in 1977, the Western Australian Government put a blanket ban on its recently decommissioned Aboriginal archive and even threatened...

More from this edition

Behind the scene

EssayIN THE MIDDLE of the twentieth century, most Australian actors who wished to consider themselves ‘legitimate’ would still have considered the acquisition of a...

Asking the relevant questions

EssayTHE FIRST QUESTION. Why European thinking – again? My exchange with Europe goes back to the beginning: my father fled the country of his birth – the...

Ripped in half?

IntroductionON THE HIGHWAY before the turnoff to the tranquil village where my small house sits in the heart of Europe – in Vojvodina, an hour...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.