Edmund Abraham Cumberbatch Olive

Edmund Abraham Cumberbatch Olive (born February 24, 1844 in Hellingly , Sussex , † May 9, 1921 in Mt. Olive near Cooktown , Queensland ) was a British-Australian auctioneer and naturalist .

Life

Olive was the son of John Olive and Emma Cumberbatch. His father was a clergyman . In 1873 he emigrated to Australia and in 1875 he moved to Cooktown, Queensland, where he married Grace Neil in February 1876. From this marriage 15 children were born. At the height of the Palmer gold rush , he became an auctioneer and commission agent on his Mt. Olive estate near Cooktown, which he had acquired in 1881. With the support of Aboriginal Billy Olive, he developed a keen interest in natural history . They undertook numerous excursions to nearby areas with dense, undisturbed vegetation as well as to Mount Bellenden Ker and to New Guinea , where Olive amassed considerable collections of the native fauna. These include the type specimens of the gecko species Gymnodactylus olivii and the ocher breast chicken ( Turnix olivii ), both of which were named after him. Olive sent many copies to Australian, European and American collectors and museums.

literature

• Belinda McKay: Constructing a Life on the Northern Frontier: EAC Olive of Cooktown Queensland Review, Griffith University, Queensland, 2000, pp. 1–16 (biography)
• Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson: The Eponym Dictionary of Birds . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014, p. 415