Photographs of James Backhouse (1794-1869) undated.

Abstract

James Backhouse came from a family of successsful Quaker businessmen in Durham. After leaving school he was apprenticed to a chemist and after contracting tuberculosis began working in a nursery where he developed an interest in Australian plants. That, combined with an interest in prison reform, encouraged him to undertake missionary work in Australia. Soon after his wife died in 1827 he left for the southern hemisphere with George Washington Walker. He travelled to all the Australian colonies and South Africa, making recommendations about social conditions, setting up Quaker Meetings and collecting plants which he sent back to Kew Gardens, returning to England in 1841.