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SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 
retain Cunningham’s services as “ Government Botanist,” a purely 
scientific appointment, including travel in the colony, leaving the 
gardening portion of the duties, hitherto attached to the position, to 
Mr. James Anderson, as Superintendent. Cunningham demanded the 
salary of £450 clear, and His Excellency, pointing out the high price 
“ of house-rent and every article of life,” said the salary was not to 
be objected to; but still the matter was not pressed in the Legislative 
Council, and learning this, Cunningham finally “ washed his hands ” 
of the Garden in April, 1838. 
He left Port Jackson in the French corvette, “ L’Heroine,” Captain 
Cecille, on the 15th April, for New Zealand, on a further botanical 
expedition, returning to Sydney on 13th October, 1838, “ in a deplorable 
state of health.” The warmer air of Sydney added no new strength 
to his debilitated frame, and in 1839 he was reluctantly compelled to 
decline accompanying Captain Wickham on his survey to the north- 
west coast. 
The end was not far off, and Howard gives the following account of 
Cunningham’s last moments : — 
“On the 24th of June, 1839, he was removed from his lodgings in 
Sydney to the cottage in the Botanic Garden, for change of scene and 
air. ... On Thursday, the 27th . . . his last breath was 
sighed away in the arms of his faithful friend, James Anderson ” (his 
successor in the superintendence of the Garden). He died of con- 
sumption, a martyr to geographical exploration and botanical science, 
in the 48th year of his age. 
An admirable life of Allan Cunningham was written by his friend 
and executor, Heward,* which contains a lithograph portrait by J. 
Robinson, from the original in the Linnean Society. 
Allan Cunningham is my ideal amongst Australian botanists. His 
was a noble character, and he literally worked himself to death for 
the advancement of his favourite science. As a geographical explorer 
the present generation knows but little of the debt Australia owes to 
him. He is better appreciated in Queensland at the present day, 
and an admirable account of his explorations in what is now Queens- 
land is contained in a paper by the Hon. Arthur Morgan, M.L.A.f 
Sir J. D. Hooker, the late Director of Kew, says : — 
Cunningham’s botanical travels are by far the most continuous and extensive 
that have ever been performed in Australia, or, perhaps, in any other country. 
His vast collections were, for the most part, transmitted to Kew, whence they 
* Biographical sketch of the late Allan Cunningham. Esq., F.L.S., M.R.G.S., &c.. by Robert 
Heward, F.L.S. This was published in part in Hooker’s Lundoii Journal of Botany, vol. iv, 
pp. 107-128, 263-290 (1842). 
t “ The niscovery and Early Development of the Darling Downs,” read before the Royal 
Geographical Society of Australasia (Queensland Brandi), at its Warwick meeting, 7th May. 
1902, and published in its Proceedings. 
See also Russell’s “ Genesis of Queensland,” 59, 77, 127; alio Kew Bulletin, 1891, p. 309. 
