CHEESEMAN, THOMAS FREDERIC (1846-1923) was born at Hull, Yorkshire, the son of Thomas Cheeseman (q.v.), with whom he came to New Zealand at the age of eight. He attended first the Parnell Grammar School and later St John's College. He started farming. Stimulated, it is thought, by reading Hooker's Handbook, Cheeseman conceived an interest in New Zealand flora, of which he had acquired such a sound knowledge by 1876 that he was able to publish a comprehensive account of the plant life of the Waitakerei hills. In 1874 he was appointed secretary of the Auckland Institute and curator of the museum, then in its infancy. His duty led him to the gathering together of invaluable natural history collections and to studies in botany, agriculture, horticulture and forestry, which he continued with unabated interest till his death (on 15 Oct 1923). Though primarily a botanist, 22 out of the 101 papers that he wrote for the scientific publications of New Zealand were on ethnology and zoology. As a botanist he was pre-eminent, and he made a keen search for plants, notably in Nelson province and in the Three Kings and the Kermadecs. He also visited Polynesia and published in the transactions of the Linnaean Society an account of the flora of Rarotonga. In 1906 appeared his monumental Manual of New Zealand Flora, to which was added in 1914 his own and Dr W. B. Helmsley's Illustrations of the New Zealand Flora. He described the vascular flora of the Macquarie islands for the Australian Antarctic expedition of 1911-14. He wrote many papers of a philosophical character dealing with New Zealand sub-Antarctic flora and, in his earlier writings, were some dealing with the pollination of certain species. He had sound judgment and infinite patience so that his Flora, to quote the words of Dr L. Cockayne, "stands out the equal of any of that brilliant series of floras dealing with various parts of the British Empire which were conceived and in part executed by Bentham and Hooker." He presented to the Auckland Institute his almost complete herbarium and the most extensive collection illustrating Maori ethnology. Cheeseman was early elected a fellow of the Linnaean society, which awarded him its rare gold medal, and he was a corresponding member of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. In 1911 he was president of the New Zealand Institute, in 1918 he received its Hector memorial medal, and in 1919 was elected a fellow.

L. Cockayne in Trans. N.Z. Institute, vol 54, xvii (P) (Hamilton's bibliography in vol xxxvi lists his publications); Cheeseman, op. cit.; Cycl. N.Z. iii, 209; N.Z. Herald, 16 Oct 1923 (P).

Reference: Volume 1, page 94

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