Sydney Parkinson 1745-1771
This site provides links to places online where you can find out more about Parkinson, the voyages with the Endeavour and what happened to the drawings and paintings when he returned to the UK
There is very little information about Parkinson online or in books and this site continues to be a work in progress. Please leave tips about useful sites to include as a comment.
Note: All images sourced from Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons
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- Sydney Parkinson - an overview
- Biography of Sydney Parkinson
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations
- Botanical Illustrations by Sydney Parkinson
- Sydney Parkinson's Journal
- BOOKS: About the voyage of the Endeavour
- Botanical Artists - Gardens and Herbals
- Botanical Artists - Exploration and Discovery
- Resources for Botanical Artists
- Comments and Feedback
Sydney Parkinson - an overview
Sydney Parkinson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1745. He studied drawing and became proficient at drawing plants and flowers. He decided to move to London to improve his education and experience. There he was discovered by a young Joseph Banks who subsequently hired him to work at the botanical garden at Kew.
The next year he was hired by Banks to draw the plants collected.on the voyages by Captain Cook to South America, Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia.
On the return trip the ship Endeavour was besieged by illness and Sydney Parkinson contracted dysentary and died on January 26th 1771 and was buried at sea.
He had completed 280 finished and botanically accurate paintings and over 900 sketches and drawings.
Ficus parkinsonii was named in his honour
After very many years, Sydney Parkinson is finally getting recognition for the valuable work he performed on such an important voyage of discovery.
Bibliography - see below
Biography of Sydney Parkinson
* Rex Rienits, 'Parkinson, Sydney (1745? - 1771)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, Melbourne University Press, 1967, p. 314.
* Britten, J. (ed.), Illustrations of Australian Plants Collected in 1770 during Captain Cook's Voyage, London, 1905. [detail]
* Rienits, R.; Rienits, T., Early Artists of Australia, Sydney, 1963. [detail]
* Smith, B., European Vision and the South Pacific, 1768-1850, Oxford, 1960. [detail]
* J.H.Maiden Sir Joseph Banks: the Father of Australia (1909);
M.Rix The Art of the Plant World (1981);
* D.J.Carr Sydney Parkinson: Artist of CookÃs Endeavour Voyage (1983);
* J.Phipps Artist's Gardens (c.1986);
* L.deBray The Art of Botanical Illustration (1989);
* J.Kerr The Dictionary of Australian Artists (1992);
* W.Blunt & W.T.Stearn The Art of Botanical Illustration 2nd edn (1994);
* C.Mills Images from Nature (1998);
* T.Rice Voyages of Discovery (1999);
* H.Hewson Australia - 300 Years of Botanical Illustration (1999)
- Rocky Road: Sydney Parkinson
- When the 25-year-old Joseph Banks boarded the Endeavour with James Cook, he brought with him, among others, two artists. Much could go wrong on 18th-century ship voyages, and much did on the Endeavour. One of Banks's artists, Alexander Buchan, died shortly after the ship reached Tahiti. That left the other artist, Sydney Parkinson, to illustrate all the specimens Banks collected, with only a little help from Banks's secretary. Tropical temperatures and a rocking ship added to Parkinson's challenges as he tried desperately to keep up with the collections of plants, marine and terrestrial animals, and sea birds. According to some accounts, bugs ate pigments off the paper as Parkinson tried to paint what he saw.
- Sydney Parkinson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Sydney Parkinson (c. 1745 - 26 January 1771) was a Scottish Quaker, botanical illustrator and natural history artist.
Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks to travel with him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. Parkinson made nearly a thousand drawings of plants and animals collected by Banks and Daniel Solander on the voyage. He had to work in difficult conditions, living and working in a small cabin surrounded by hundreds of specimens. In Tahiti he was plagued by swarms of flies which ate the paint as he worked. He died at sea from dysentery contracted at Princes Island, on the way to Cape Town. Banks paid his outstanding salary to his brother.
Parkinson is commemorated in the common and scientific name of the Parkinson's Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni.
The great Florilegium of his work was finally published in 1988 by Alecto Historical Editions in 35 volumes and has since been digitized by the Natural History Museum in London. - Sydney Parkinson (c.1745-1771) - PlantExplorers.com™
- Parkinson, Sydney c.1745-1771, Botanical artist
- Parkinson, Sydney (1745? - 1771) Biographical Entry - Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
- Australian Dictionary of Biography - Online Edition
Parkinson, Sydney (1745? - 1771)
Parkinson was the first artist to set foot on Australian soil, to draw an authentic Australian landscape, and to portray Aboriginals from direct observation. - CHAH - Parkinson, Sydney
- Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria
Australian National Herbarium
BIOGRAPHY
The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
- An image gallery of botanical art from the first voyage of the Enveavour.
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum - Introduction & The Voyage
- Introduction - The Endeavour
The Botany Library at the Natural History Museum holds all of the surviving botanical artwork from Captain James Cook's first Pacific voyage.
Represented are works of the artists Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771), John Frederick Miller and Frederick Polydore Nodder, among others. These artists' works feature in the finished watercolours made during and after the voyage, between 1773 and 1784. Of the three, only Parkinson sailed on the ship and it was he who made the first sketches of the plants which were encountered and collected. - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum - The Collections
- Parkinson's sketches finally made up 21 large bound volumes.
Description of the scale and the enormity of the task facing Sydney Parkinson - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum - Publication and Printing from Copper Plates
- Banks employed five watercolourists from the winter of 1773 to complete 595 new artworks based on Parkinson's unfinished work. He then also employed 18 engravers until 1784, to cut copper printing plates, based on 743 artworks, in readiness for scientific publication in colour.
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum - Final Publication
- It was not until the 1980s that the Museum, in association with the publisher Editions Alecto, decided to renovate the copper printing plates which were still in safe storage and then to print from them, for the first time in colour, the complete set of images.
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum - People
- Short bios of Cook Banks solander and Parkinson
- Illustrations Pictures from Cook's first voyage
- 43 illustrations from the Natural History Museum Picture Library
Botanical Illustrations by Sydney Parkinson
- Sydney Parkinson - Wikimedia Commons
- Sydney Parkinson From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
- File:Banksia serrata watercolour from Bank's Florilegium.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
- Banksia serrata watercolour from Bank's Florilegium.jpg From Wikimedia Commons,
- File:Banksia integrifolia watercolour from Banks' Florilegium.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
- Banksia integrifolia watercolour from Banks' Florilegium.jpg From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
- Australia - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations relating to Australia
- Brazil - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations relating to Brazil
- Java - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations relating to Java
- Madeira - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations relating to Madeira
- New Zealand - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations relating to New Zealand
- Society Islands - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations relating to the Society Islands
- Tierra Del Fuego - The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
- The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations relating to Tierra del Fuego
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
I N HIS Majesty's Ship, The ENDEAVOUR.
Faithfully transcribed from the Papers of the late
SYDNEY PARKINSON,
Draughtsman to JOSEPH BANKS, Esq. on his late Expedition.
with Dr. SOLANDER, round the World.
EMBELLISHED WITH
Views and Designs, delineated by the AUTHOR, and engraved by capital Artists.
LONDON:
Printed for STANFIELD PARKINSON, the EDITOR:
And sold by Messrs RICHARDSON and URQUHART, at the ROYAL-EXCHANGE; EVANS, in PATER-NOSTER Row ; HOOPER, on LUDGATE-HILL ; MURRAY, in FLEET-STREET; LEACROFT, at CHARING-CROSS; and RILEY, in CURZON-STREET, MAY-FAIR.
M.DCC.LXXIII.
- Parkinson's Journal, Title Page
- Page i - Parkinson's Journal Title Page
- Parkinson's Journal, About this Edition
- Page ii - Parkinson's Journal - about this edition
- Parkinson's Journal, Table of Contents
- Page iii Parkinson's Journal Table of Contents
- Parkinson's Journal, Engravings
- Page iv Parkinson's Journal List of Engravings
(these relate to drawings of the indigenous people)
BOOKS: About the voyage of the Endeavour
books on Amazon
Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks: During Captain Cook's First Voyage in H.M.S. Endeavour in 1768-71 to Terra del Fuego, Otahite, New Zealand, Australia, the Dutch East Indies, etc
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1896 edition by Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London.
Amazon Price: $25.46 (as of 01/03/2010) 
The Journals of Captain Cook (Penguin Classics)
A new one-volume abridged edition of Cook's famous journals--"a majestic story of epic proportions"(Philip Edwards in the Introduction)
Captain Cook's Journals provide his vivid first-hand account of three extraordinary expeditions between 1768 and 1779. These charted the entire coast of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia and brought back detailed descriptions of Tahiti, Tonga, and a host of previously unknown islands in the Pacific including the Hawaiian Islands. The journals amply reveal the determination, courage, and skill that enabled Cook to wrestle with the continuous dangers of uncharted seas and the problems of achieving a relationship with the peoples whose unannounced guest he became. This edition, abridged from the definitive four-volume Hakluyt Society edition, makes Cook's inimitable personal account of his years of voyaging widely accessible for the first time and includes an Introduction to each voyage, a Glossary of unusual words, indexes of people and places, and a Postscript assessing the controversy surrounding Cook's death.
Amazon Price: $10.40 (as of 01/03/2010)
Voyages of Discovery: A Visual Celebration of Ten of the Greatest Natural History Expeditions
A rare and beautiful selection of works handpicked from the vast archives of London's Natural History Museum.
"The book's greatest contribution is to showcase the work of the artists who, usually under very difficult circumstances, so brilliantly served science and opened Western eyes to new worlds."
- School Library Journal (on the original edition)
Voyages of Discovery is a mesmerizing visual survey of the most significant discoveries in the history of natural science exploration. Superb artwork and photographs spanning three centuries document landmark advances made in the field and bring to life the fascinating stories of the explorers, naturalists, artists and photographers.
The book is fully illustrated in color with informative text and captions. Highlights include:
* Sir Hans Sloane's 1687 voyage to Jamaica, where he collected and recorded plant specimens, including cocoa, which are preserved to this day
* Maria Sybilla Merian's personal journey to Surinam in 1699, where in brilliant detail she recorded butterflies and exotic insects
* Charles Darwin's fateful trip to the Galapagos Islands, on which he cataloged finches and fossils
* William Bartram's fanciful documentation of North American wildlife
* Matthew Flinders' mapping of Australia, where he was accompanied by Ferdinand Bauer, perhaps the greatest of all natural science artists.
The Natural History Museum in London has the world's most comprehensive collection of natural science specimens and artworks. Voyages of Discovery offers readers a privileged opportunity to explore that collection.
Amazon Price: $27.02 (as of 01/03/2010)
Botanical Artists - Gardens and Herbals
great botanical artists who documented plants in great gardens
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The Bauer Brothers - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers
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Many experts regard the Bauer brothers - Franz and Ferdinand, as being being two of the best botanical artists that have ever lived. Sir Joseph Banks spotted Franz Bauer's skills and arranged for him to become employed as "botanick Painter to his Ma...
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Basilius Besler - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers
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Basilius Besler was in charge of a major project which changed botanical art and the course of its future development. Find about Basilius Besler, the garden at Eichstätt and learn how you can visit that garden today. This site includes links to biog...
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Pierre Redoute - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers
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Many people, like me, will have first become interested in botanical art because of the paintings of roses, lilies and other flowers produced by Pierre Redoute. He is one of the most talented botanical artists ever known. Redoute was fortunate to be...
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Elizabeth Blackwell - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers
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Elizabeth Blackwell was the first British woman to produce a herbal and the first woman to engrave as well as draw plants. She compiled and published her hand drawn, engraved and coloured "A Curious Herbal" in 1735 in order to raise funds to free her...
Botanical Artists - Exploration and Discovery
great botanical artists who explored and documented flora
See also Ferdinand Bauer in the Bauer Bros. site above-
Margaret Mee - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers
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Margaret Mee was both a botanical artist and a conservationist. In 1952, age 41 she left England to go and live in the Amazon where she studied and painted the plants and flowers of the Amazon rainforest. This site introduces Margaret Mee and will b...
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Maria Sibylla Merian - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers
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A History of Botanical Art - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers
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This site shares information about the history of botanical art and illustration - leading botanical artists of the past, collections - in museums and online, exhibitions, books and book reviews and other resources for those interested in the history...
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