Charles Hedley

Charles Hedley (27 February 1862 – 14 September 1926) was a naturalist, specifically a malacologist. Born in Britain, he spent most of his life in Australia. He was the winner of the 1925 Clarke Medal.

Hedley was born in the vicarage at Masham, Yorkshire, England, the son of the Rev. Canon Thomas Hedley and his wife Mary, née Bush. On account of delicate health Hedley had only two years at Eastbourne College, but his education was continued by his father, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was mainly educated in the south of France; from boyhood he collected mollusc shells, and was greatly influenced by a French work on molluscan anatomy. In France he met George French Angas who gave him a letter of introduction to Dr. George Bennett of Sydney.

In 1881 Hedley went to New Zealand and in September 1882 to Sydney. He was suffering from asthma and after trying the dry interior found he was in better health when near the sea. He took up an oyster lease at Moreton Bay, Queensland, and then tried fruit-growing at Boyne Island, Port Curtis. His first published paper, "Uses of Some Queensland Plants", was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland in 1888, and in the same year he came to Brisbane. He did some voluntary work for the Queensland museum and on 1 January 1889 was appointed a supernumerary officer of it. In July he became honorary secretary of the Royal Society of Queensland, and in 1890, at the invitation of the administrator, Sir William Macgregor, he visited New Guinea, did some exploring, and made important collections. He was much interested in the natural history of New Guinea, but he contracted fever, and towards the end of 1890 he went to Sydney.

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