Early Life
Thurston was born in London, England in 1836, where he received an elementary education before pursuing a nautical career in 1850. In 1855 he became first officer, but shortly afterwards was struck down by cholera and was sent to Australia to recover. He became a sheep farmer with a friend, but in 1862 the farm was destroyed by a flood. In 1864, he joined a botanising expedition to the South Sea Islands and was wrecked on Samoa for 18 months, before being rescued and bought to Fiji.
Read more about this topic: John Bates Thurston
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)