Sydney Parkinson (1745 - 1771)

Sydney Parkinson

Sydney Parkinson was a Scottish artist who sailed on the Endeavour with Captain Cook to South America, Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia.

The talented natural history illustrator was hired by renowned English naturalist and botanist Joseph Banks on James Cook's first voyage in the Pacific. In three years, Parkinson managed to make more than a thousand drawings of plants and animals collected by Banks and Daniel Solander during the voyage. And their number was staggeringly huge. He was also the first to draw the local inhabitants with the precision of an explorer. Parkinson's duties also included keeping a journal on board the ship. Without exaggeration, the artist's heroic and dedicated work under harsh conditions led to his premature death - he died of dysentery at sea on his way to Cape Town.

Sidney Parkinson was the first European artist to visit Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. Without his Herculean efforts as a botanical artist, Banks' work would not have had such high scientific value. A large number of Parkinson's works have survived: the British Museum holds 18 volumes of his drawings of plants, of which eight relate to Australian plants, three volumes on zoological subjects, of which several sketches relate to Australia, and many of his landscapes and other drawings, mostly of the inhabitants of Tahiti and New Zealand.