Chambers, Thomas Carrick (1930 - 2023)

Born Auckland, New Zealand, on 5 September 1930; died Sydney, Australia, on 31 July 2023.

Carrick Chambers was the son of a professional photographer and keen gardener, During the Great Depression, his father and mother rented a shop, running it as stationery store and lending library.

The young Chambers demonstrated an early interest in botany and at age 10 was working as a nurseryman. In the war years, he was a student at the Agricultural (Otahuhu Technical) College in Auckland, his studies interspersed with vegetable harvesting for the war effort. Turning down the option of teaching, he went to Auckland University College, paying his way by working at a freezing works, on wharves and as a plumber's assistant.

Chambers graduated as a master of science in 1954, taught at the college for a year, then in 1956 took a teaching fellowship at the Sydney University. In 1958, he joined the CSIRO and in 1959 married Margaret Davis, whom he had met as a student at the university. He completed a PhD in 1960 and was awarded a CSIRO overseas postgraduate studentship at Cambridge, where he trained in electron microscopy in the botany school and the Cavendish Laboratory, riding on the wave of new biological knowledge which included the unravelling of the structure of DNA. He and his wife returned to Australia in 1961, where Chambers took a position at the botany department at Melbourne University.

In 1967 he became one of the university's youngest professors, later chairing the botany department, and took his studies into a range of fields, including electron microscopy, genetics, taxonomy and palaeontology. Chambers went on to sit on and chair many trusts and committees, consulting on such things as the gardens at Government House and the Melbourne Club.

In 1986, Chambers and his wife relocated to Sydney, where he was appointed director of the Royal Botanic Garden, succeeding Dr Lawrie Johnson.

Chambers oversaw the opening and development of the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah - formerly a cut-flower farm - and the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan - formerly farmland.

In 1996, Chambers retired and was appointed an honorary research associate at the National Herbarium of New South Wales to continue fern research. In 1998, he was awarded an AM for "service to botany and its application to horticulture as Director of Royal Botanic Garden and Domain, Sydney, and as a teacher and researcher on conservation issues and botanical concepts".

His interests continued in his later years. In 2019, he published his last scientific paper, with a colleague, Dr Peter Wilson, after researching the taxonomy of Blechnum ferns.

Sources:Obituary: www.smh.com.au/national/botanist-identified-wollemi-pine-as-jurassic-park-brought-to-life-20230815-p5dwkf.html
Encyclopedia of Australian Science website: www.eoas.info/biogs/P000306b.htm
Death notice, Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, 3 Aug. 2023
Portrait Photo: M.Fagg 2002

Collecting localities for 'Chambers, T.C.' from AVH (2021)

Data from 2,082 specimens