Fraser, Charles (c.1788-1831)
Date 2006/2/27 7:26:24 | Topic: Australian
| Charles Fraser (?1788-1831) a Scottish-born private of the 45th Regiment arrived in Sydney in April 1816.
There is no record of the early life of Fraser but he appears to have been familiar before his arrival with the cultivated Australian plants and their names growing at Edinburgh Botanic Garden. Fraser’s keen interest in botany drew Governor MacQuarie’s attention and he was made superintendent of the Sydney Botanic Gardens when it was formally proclaimed by MacQuarie in June 1816.
The ‘botanical soldier’ accompanied John Oxley on three journeys within New South Wales as collector.
1817 (Lachlan River, Bathurst),
1818 (north-eastern New South Wales)
1819 (Port Macquarie/Hastings River)
In 1826, Fraser visited Norfolk Island and the Bay of Islands, New Zealand where he busily collected along the shore for many hours both specimens and live plants.
He visited the Swan River district in Western Australia in 1827 as part of Stirling's pre-settlement survey.
He also visited Tasmania twice. (1820, 1826)
In 1828, Charles Fraser visited the newly formed Moreton Bay Settlement (now Brisbane, Queensland), he wrote in his journal of 15 July, "While following the line of the creek (Breakfast Creek), I met with the females of a tribe of Aborigines, who, on seeing me, set up a dreadful yell. Their cries brought the men, who observing however that I was not a runaway convict, offered me no violence."
Fraser died of a stroke at Parramatta on 22 December 1831 after taking ill at Emu Plains while returning from a collecting trip to Bathurst with cartloads of living plants. It is probable that Fraser liked a drop of rum. The Australian, 30 December 1831, recorded that there were ‘few to whom Charley Fraser was not personally known...Naturally of a plethoric habit, his convivial disposition probably contributed not a little to the apoplectic attack of which he expired.’ He was thought to be about 44 years of age.
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