HUTTON, FREDERICK WOLLASTON (1836-1905) was the son of the Rev. F. H. Hutton, and was born at Gate Burton, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Southwell Grammar School and at the Royal Naval Academy, Gosport, but at the age of 14 entered Green's merchant service and made several voyages to the East in the Alfred. In 1854 he entered the applied science department of King's College, London, to qualify as a civil engineer; but on the outbreak of the Crimean war he received his commission (1855) as ensign in the 23rd Regiment (Royal Welsh Fusiliers). After a period of service in the field he returned to England, was promoted lieutenant (1857) and sailed for China, but was diverted to India. He was at the relief of Lucknow under Sir Colin Campbell. In 1858 Hutton returned to England to help raise a new battalion of the regiment. He passed the school of musketry at Hythe and was appointed instructor to the battalion, with which he went to Malta. Having completed his training at Sandhurst and Woolwich (specialising in geology and mineralogy) and been elected a fellow of the Geological Society (1860), he was attached to the Royal Horse Artillery, and then to the 9th Lancers. Promoted captain (1862), he rejoined his regiment at Malta. In 1863 he was brigade-major at the Curragh, and in 1864 deputy-adjutant and quartermaster-general at Dublin.

In 1865 Hutton sold out of the army and came to New Zealand in the Queen of the South, reaching Auckland in 1866. He started flaxmilling, but was soon employed by the provincial government to examine the extent of the coal deposits in lower Waikato, and then spent two years under the Colonial Government reporting on the Thames and the geology of the Great Barrier. In 1869 he erected a flaxmill at Churchill, Waikato, but abandoned it as a financial loss. At the request of McLean, Hutton reported on the defence of Auckland against a sudden cruiser attack, and examined the harbours of Nelson, Wellington, Lyttelton and Port Chalmers. He recommended the mounting of guns and locomotive torpedoes and the training of marine artillery and volunteers.

In 1871 Hutton published his catalogue of New Zealand birds, in 1872 a catalogue of fishes, and in 1873 a catalogue of mollusca. He was appointed geologist to the Geological Survey and teacher of natural science at Wellington College. He then became provincial geologist of Otago, and in 1873 professor of natural science at Otago University. In 1880 he was appointed professor of biology at Canterbury College, a position he held until 1892, when he resigned to become curator of the Canterbury Museum. In that year also he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Hutton wrote many scientific papers. In 1861 he reviewed Darwin's Origin of Species, and some years later his Lamarckism and Darwinism attracted a good deal of attention. He also published many scientific text-books, and collaborated with J. Drummond in The Animals of New Zealand (1904). His magnum opus was the Index Faunae Novae Zealandiae, published in the same year. Hutton was president of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science.

He married (1861) Annie Gouger, daughter of Dr William Montgomerie, H.E.I.C.S., and died on 27 Oct 1905.

Col. Gent.; Hight and Candy; Hutton and Drummond, op. cit. (4th ed.); Otago Daily Times and The Press, 31 Oct 1905. Portrait: N.Z. Jour. of Science, vol ii (p).

Reference: Volume 1, page 229

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