Tom Iredale (24 March 1880 – 12 April 1972) was an English-born ornithologist and malacologist who had a long association with Australia, where he lived for most of his life. He was an autodidact who never went to university and lacked formal training. This was reflected in his later work; he never revised his manuscripts and never used a typewriter.
Early life
Iredale was born at Stainburn, Workington in Cumberland, England.
New Zealand
Iredale emigrated to New Zealand following medical advice, as he had health issues. He may have had tuberculosis. He worked tirelessly on publications on shells, birds, ecology and zoogeography. He lectured frequently and wrote many popular scientific articles in newspapers. Due to his efforts (and those of later curators), the Mollusc Section at the Australian Museum now maintains the largest research collection of molluscs in the Southern Hemisphere with over 6,000 specimens. He was an Honorary Associate from his retirement in 1944 until his death.
Taxa
Iredale recorded a list of around on thousand systematic names he had published by 1932, chronologically arranged and indexed to the relevant work, this unpublished list became the basis for the one produced for the Australian Museum and published in The Australian zoologist (1956). detailing the works of Iredale's fifty-year career. This list, produced as tribute to the still active author, brought the total number of names to over two and a half thousand, and noted his other publications and collaborators.
Many species and several genera in conchology, ichthyology and ornithology were also named in honour of Iredale, including:
- The molluscan genus Iredalea W. Oliver, 1915
- Cryptoplax iredalei E. Ashby, 1923
Iredale was made a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales in 1931; was awarded the Clarke Medal of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1959;