Joseph Maiden

Who was Joseph Maiden?

Joseph Henry Maiden was a botanist who made a major contribution to knowledge of the Australian flora, especially the Eucalyptus genus. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Maiden when citing a botanical name.

Joseph Maiden was born in St John's Wood in northwest London. He studied science at the University of London, but due to ill health he did not complete the course. As part of his treatment he was advised to take a long sea voyage, and so in 1880 he sailed for New South Wales. In 1881, Maiden was appointed first curator of the Technological Museum in Sydney, remaining there until 1896. He was much interested in the native plants, and in his early days was associated with the Rev. William Woolls in his botanical studies. After his first collection of plants were destroyed in a fire at the Garden Palace near Sydney Botanic Gardens in 1882, he amassed a new collection, which was housed in part of an exhibition hall in the Outer Domain, behind Sydney Hospital. This collection formed the basis for his first book, Useful Native Plants of Australia, published in 1889, in which he acknowledged his debt to the work of Ferdinand von Mueller with whom he had been in correspondence.