Ralph Tate

Ralph Tate (11 March 1840 – 20 September 1901) was a British-born botanist and geologist, who was later active in Australia.

Tate was born at Alnwick in Northumberland, the son of Thomas Turner Tate (1807–1888), a teacher of mathematics and science, and his wife Frances (née Hunter). He was nephew to George Tate (1805–1871), naturalist and archaeologist, an active member of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club. Tate was educated at the Cheltenham Training College and at the Royal School of Mines.

In 1861 Tate was appointed teacher of natural science at the Philosophical Institution in Belfast. There he studied botany, publishing his Flora Belfastiensis in 1863, while also investigating the Cretaceous and Triassic rocks of Antrim, the results of which he presenting to the Geological Society of London. In 1864 Tate was appointed assistant at the museum of that society. In 1866 he wrote three botanical papers, and also published A Plain and Easy Account of the Land and Freshwater Mollusks of Great Britain. In 1867 he went on an exploring expedition to Nicaragua and Venezuela. In 1871 he was appointed to the mining school established by the Cleveland ironmasters first at Darlington and later at Redcar. Here he made a special study of the Lias and its fossils, in conjunction with the Rev. J. F. Blake, the results being published in an important work, The Yorkshire Lias (1876), in which the life-history of the strata was first worked out in detail.

In 1875 Tate was appointed Elder Professor of natural science at the University of Adelaide in South Australia, teaching botany, zoology and geology. He became vice-president and then as president (1878–1879) of the Philosophical Society. It changed name to the Royal Society of South Australia in 1880 with Tate as its first president in that year Tate encouraged members to send in original papers, personally contributing nearly 100 papers to its Transactions and Proceedings.

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