(2008) Page(s) 67.
from Gillbank, Linden. 2008, ‘University Botany in Colonial Victoria: Frederick McCoy’s Botanical Classes and Collections at the University of Melbourne’, Historical Records of Australian Science, 2008, 19, 53–82
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=HR08002.pdf
The sole candidate [for *Frederick McCoy’s first botany examination] was the University’s ‘first’ student, Thomas Cornelius Cole (first signature on the matriculation roll; enrolment number 18550001), who happened to come from a horticultural family. Cole passed McCoy’s geology and zoology examinations in 1856, and chemistry in 1857, and, not having sat for an undergraduate examination in botany, was examined in botany in the School’s honour examination in March 1858.[endnote109] The subsequent commemoration of the University’s first botany student with the yellow ‘Rev. T. C. Cole’ rose [endnote110] seems beautifully appropriate.
109. Student Record for Thomas Cornelius Cole, Accession No. 88/51, Student Administration, University of Melbourne, UMA. Examination Book, op. cit. (n. 107), pp. 4, 7, 12. McCoy set no honours examinations in the science subjects that the sole candidate had already passed; Melbourne University Calendar 1858–9, pp. 129–130, 147.
T. C. Cole’s father, brothers and uncle were nurserymen: R. Aitken, ‘Cole, Thomas Cornelius’ in Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (Melbourne, 2002), pp. 147–148;
M. Drew, ‘Thomas Cornelius Cole: fragments of a life’, in Melbourne University Mosaic: People and Places (Melbourne, 1998), pp. 9–22.
110. E. Scott, A History of the University of Melbourne (Melbourne, 1936), p. 41. It originated from a seedling raised by Cole.
* From his appointment in 1854 until his death in 1899, Frederick McCoy was the Professor of Natural Science [at the University of Melbourne] and, for most of that time, also honorary Director of the Colony of Victoria’s National Museum. p53
© Australian Academy of Science 2008 and reprinted here with permission
