Reedy, Thomas (1842–1929)

Born in Ireland in 1842; died in Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia on 11 January 1929 and buried in the Catholic Cemetery at Camden, NSW.

Thomas Reedy arrived in Australia in 1854 at the age of twelve and spent his working life as a gardner at Camden Park in western Sydney in the employ of the Macarthur family. Reedy was sent on an expedition to northern Australia and Papua New Guinea between May and September 1875, during which he collected living plants, seeds, and dried specimens.

Reedy was accompanied by Dingwall, another gardener at Camden Park, on a biological and exploring expedition aboard the barque Chevert to the Torres Strait and New Guinea. The expedition was funded and led by Sir William (John) Macleay, who had recently been appointed as the first President of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. The two gardeners were sent mainly to collect living plant material, as their employer Sir William Macarthur was a keen horticulturist, but Reedy also collected around 150 herbarium specimens (now mostly held at MEL and NSW). This included the type material of Eucalyptus papuana F.Muell., probably gathered near the Ethel River about 15 km inland from the south coast of Papua (nearly opposite Yule Island) on 25 or 26 August 1875. This species is one of the few eucalypts with a distribution extending from northern Queensland through the Torres Strait into New Guinea.

Reedy is presumed to be the person honoured in the specific epithet of Elaeocarpus reedyi F.Muell., although no etymology was provided when that species name was published.