Biography
Born in East Fremantle, Western Australia on 4 April 1939, he joined the Western Australian Herbarium as a laboratory assistant at the age of twenty in 1959. He worked under Charles Gardner for a year before the latter's retirement, and partly credits him with rekindling an interest in banksias. In 1963 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Australia, and the following year added a botany major. Continuing at the Western Australian Herbarium as a botanist, in 1968 he was seconded as Australian Botanical Liaison Officer at the Royal Botanic Gardens in London. George also has an interest in history, especially historical biography of naturalists in Western Australia. He has published a number of articles in the field of history, including a history of the Royal Society of Western Australia and a tribute to naturalist and historian Rica Erickson. In 1999 he published a book on William Dampier's naturalist collections in Western Australia entitled William Dampier in New Holland: Australia's First Natural Historian.
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