Lothian, Thomas Robert Noel (1915 - 2004)

Born on 25 December 1915 in Mount Albert, Melbourne, Vict; died on 24 September 2004 in Townsville QLD.

After completing school, he studied at Burnley Horticultural College. He worked in botanical gardens in Melbourne and at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens in New Zealand, then started study at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1938. Lothian was an exchange student at the Munich Botanic Garden when the Second World War broke out. After returning to the United Kingdom to complete studies at Kew Gardens, he joined the Australian Army and managed farms in New Guinea as a lieutenant.

After the war, Lothian studied and lectured at the Lincoln Agricultural College in New Zealand. In 1948 he was appointed director of the Adelaide Botanic Garden at the age of 36, a position he held until 1980.

His clear goal was to remake the gardens on an 'International basis'. This encompassed everything from reinstating the importance of the science of botany and the herbarium, to replacing outmoded plantings and gardening equipment. (The horse-drawn lawn mowers were dispensed with promptly.)  Lothian championed experimental tree plantations for rural and suburban plantings. He also encouraged a new interest in plants from South Australia's arid zones. And as the centenary of the Gardens approached (1855-1955), Lothian began to reconstitute the herbarium, whose collections and functions had been dispersed in previous decades between the gardens, the University of Adelaide and the SA Museum.

He was a prominent member of the Royal Society and chairman of its offshoot, the Field Naturalists Society for several years. In 1961 he was awarded an OBE for services to horticulture, and in 1975 the Veitch Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Noel died at Townsville, Queensland, on 24 September 2004, and his ashes were scattered at the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden on 8 October 2004.

Source: Extracted from: Noel Lothian - Wikipedia; and https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au/places/adelaide-botanic-garden
Portrait Photo: Extracted from: New Zealand Garden Journal (Journal of the RNZIH): June 2006, Vol. 9, No. 1, P. 25

Collecting localities for 'Lothian, T.R.N.' from AVH (2021)

Data from 9,139 specimens