Gregory Macalister Mathews CBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (10 September 1876 - 27 March 1949) was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n amateur ornithologist.

Mathews made his fortune in mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 shares, and moved to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 around 1900.

He was Chairman of the British Ornithologists' Club

British Ornithologists' Club

The British Ornithologists' Club was founded in October 1892 to promote discussion between ornithologists and to produce a journal, their Bulletin, which has been published continuously since that year....

 from 1935-1938. He was made CBE in 1939 for his services to ornithology.

Mathews described M. s. musgravei, currently recognized as a subspecies of the Splendid Fairy-wren

Splendid Fairy-wren

The Splendid Fairywren , also known simply as the Splendid Wren or more colloquially in Western Australia as the Blue Wren, is a passerine bird of the Maluridae family. It is found across much of the Australian continent from central-western New South Wales and southwestern Queensland over to...

, in 1922 as a new species of bird.

In 1939 he was elected a Fellow

Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union Fellows

The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union may elect somebody to the position of Fellow, the highest grade of membership, for service to the RAOU and to ornithology. Fellows of the RAOU are entitled to use the letters FRAOU after their name. There is a limit to the number of Fellows that may...

 of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union

Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union

The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union, also known as Birds Australia, was founded in 1901 to promote the study and conservation of the native bird species of Australia and adjacent regions. This makes it Australia's oldest national birding association. It is also Australia's largest...

, and served as its President 1946-1947. He donated his ornithological library to the National Library of Australia

National Library of Australia

The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...

 in 1939.

Publications

Mathews contributed numerous papers to the ornithological literature, especially on avian taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

 and nomenclature

Nomenclature

Nomenclature is a term that applies to either a list of names or terms, or to the system of principles, procedures and terms related to naming - which is the assigning of a word or phrase to a particular object or property...

, as well as founding, funding, editing and being the principal contributor to the journal

Scientific journal

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 The Austral Avian Record

The Austral Avian Record

The Austral Avian Record, with the subtitle a scientific journal devoted primarily to the study of the Australian avifauna, was an occasional journal produced in five volumes between 1912 and 1927. It was founded, funded and edited by Australian ornithologist Gregory M. Mathews, who was also the...

. Monographic or book-length works authored or coauthored by him include:

• 1908 - The Handlist of the Birds of Australia. (Based on A Handlist of Birds by Bowdler Sharpe).
• 1910 - 1927 - The Birds of Australia
  The Birds of Australia (Mathews)
  The Birds of Australia is a 12-volume ornithological handbook covering the birds of Australia. It was the second of three monumental illustrated works dealing with the avifauna of the continent and was published midway between the other two, the first being Gould’s identically titled The Birds of...
  
   Witherby: London. (12 volumes, assisted by Tom Iredale
  Tom Iredale
  Tom Iredale was an English-born ornithologist and malacologist who had a long association with Australia, where he lived for most of his life. He was an autodidact who never went to university and lacked formal training...
  
  ).
• 1912 - The Reference List of the Birds of Australia. (Novitates Zoologicae, 18 January 1912).
• 1913 - A List of the Birds of Australia. Witherby: London.
• 1920 - The Name List of the Birds of Australia.
• 1921 - A Manual of the Birds of Australia. Volume I: Orders Casuarii to Columbae. Witherby: London. (With Tom Iredale. Only one volume published of a projected four).
• 1924 - The Check-List of the Birds of Australia. Witherby: London. (Comprising Supplements 1-3 of The Birds of Australia).
• 1925 - The Bibliography of the Birds of Australia. Witherby: London. (Comprising Supplements 4 and 5 of The Birds of Australia).
• 1927 - Systema Avium Australasianarum. a Systematic List of the Birds of the Australasian Region. BOU: London. (2 volumes).
• 1928 - The Birds of Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands and the Australian South Polar Quadrant. Witherby: London.
• 1931 - A List of the Birds of Australasia, Including New Zealand, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, and the Australasian Antarctic Quadrant.
• 1936 - A Supplement to the Birds of Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands to which is Added those Birds of New Zealand not figured by Buller. Witherby: London.
• 1942 - Birds and Books: the Story of the Mathews Ornithological Library. Verity Hewitt Bookshop: Canberra.
• 1943 - Notes on the Order Procellariiformes. (With Edward Hallstrom
  Edward Hallstrom
  Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom was one of Australia's best-known philanthropists and businessmen of the mid-20th Century.-Early life:...
  
  ).
• 1946 - A Working List of Australian Birds, including the Australian Quadrant and New Zealand. Shepherd Press: Sydney.

External links

• Find G.M. Mathews in Libraries Australia - click on the name 'Heading' to find related works in 800+ Australian library collections
• Illustrations from The birds of Australia