James BACKHOUSE

BACKHOUSE, JAMES (b. Darlington, England, 8 July 1794; d. York, England, 21 Jan. 1869). Quaker missionary, social reformer, naturalist.

Born into a Quaker business family, Backhouse in 1816, with his brother, purchased a plant nursery which prospered. In 1822 he married Deborah Lowe but she died five years later. Deeply interested in the effects of convict transportation and of slavery, Backhouse in 1831 was accredited as minister by the London Yearly Meeting to travel, as investigator and missioner, to the Australian colonies and to South Africa. His companion/secretary was a Quaker shopkeeper, George Washington Walker. Backhouses's children remained with relatives his business in his brother's care. He and Walker itinerated through the Australian colonies, 1832-1838. Ever active and alertly observant, they systematically investigated the penal system and the condition of Aborigines. They encouraged Protestant cooperation in temperance welfare and education reform and regularly distributed Bibles, tracts and BFBS schoolbooks. They established Quaker meetings in Sydney and Hobart. Backhouse, always a keen naturalist, collected many botanic specimens for Kew Gardens—hence Backhousia, a genus of myrtaceous shrub. In South Africa from mid-1838, the pair proved busy as ever, learning some Afrikaans and travelling thousands of miles by covered wagon, partly to inspect missions, partly to observe the effect of the emancipation of slaves. In 1840 Walker returned as settler to VDL, while Backhouse resumed secular life in England. In 1843, 1844 and 1862 Backhouse published his findings, expanding on his regular reports to the London Meeting.

ADB 1; Sarah Backhouse, Memoir of James Backhouse (York, 1870)

RICHARD ELY