CQUniversity's Rockhampton Campus Library will provide a safe home for medals won by world famous French botanist Anthelme Thozet*, who is already celebrated in local landmarks.

These important local artefacts have been donated by Mace Bean so they can be displayed and enjoyed more broadly by the community, under the University's custodianship.

Inspecting the Thozet medals are L-R Rockhampton Region Councillor Tony Williams, Thozet enthusiast Susan Cunningham, Member for Keppel Bruce Young and Professor Kerry Walsh

A special morning tea function was held at the Library this week to celebrate the custodianship.

LINKs to Famous Rocky garden reluctant to give up its secrets OR Uni building named after botanist OR ABOUT THE CQ COLLECTION

• The donated medals include two bronze medals awarded to Thozet during the 1866-67 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia, and a bronze medal, awarded to Thozet's widow Madame Maria Thozet at the Sydney 1879-80 International Exhibition.**

The Melbourne medals (inside circular cedar frames with convex glass covers, featuring a personification of Victoria with her 'six colonial sisters') were awarded for collections of bark and leaf specimens and for 100 specimens of native timbers. The Sydney medal (featuring a view of the Sydney Garden Palace Exhibition Building with a personification of New South Wales holding the colonial shield and surrounded by exhibition goods) was awarded for an exhibit of jujubes, papaws, oranges, grapes, bananas and coffee grown in Rockhampton (the award undoubtedly owed much to Anthelme Thozet's earlier dedication and skills).

Thozet left his mark on the city of Rockhampton in the 1800s by establishing significant community gardens and by introducing experimental crops at his 28-hectare Muellerville estate (on an area now bounded by Thozet Road, Thozet Creek, Rockonia Road and the Fitzroy River). His grave was recently discovered and marked in a small park within the bounds of the old estate.

One of the medals from the Melbourne exhibition

Rockhampton has previously recognised the botanist by naming Thozet Road, Thozet Creek, Frenchman's Creek and the suburb of Frenchville. There's also a Thozet Building at CQUniversity Rockhampton Campus and a Thozet plaque on the riverbank.

There's some suggestion that a mango tree on the Thozet estate was the very first one planted in Australia. Thozet is said to have grown the first cotton in Australia and the first wheat in Rockhampton, as well as pioneering the study of Aboriginal bush tucker. The estate helped introduce other commercial crops to the region, including tea, sugar, coffee, pepper, spices and olives.

The active botanist grew sugar cane and timber plantations and had a significant citrus orchard, helping with his ground-breaking research into the orange borer moth. If a member of the public wanted specimens, Thozet would also supply cultivation notes, meaning he was doing extension work, like an early Don Burke.

Thozet had a significant role in establishment of the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens, helped to plan South Rockhampton Cemetery and planted fig trees along the Fitzroy River which still stand to this day.

He and his wife returned to Europe for several years to give presentations on Australian plants and growing conditions and stopped off in London to lobby for separation of the north of the State of Queensland.

The medal from the Sydney exhibition

Thozet was only 52 when he died in 1878 after 12 days of bilious fever contracted during an expedition to Bluff.

His wife Madame Thozet lived much longer and got to witness a significant chunk of the 20th century. But after she died (aged 85 in 1923) Muellerville - by this time only an echo of its former glory - was sold off and eventually chopped up for residential land.

Academics and others interested in researching Thozet have established a website at www.thozet.com  to help with finding and sharing of original source materials.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Scott Bowman speaks at the morning tea

** British and Australian 19^th century 'intercolonial' exhibitions were trade fairs celebrating the grandeur of the British Empire and the achievements of Britain's far-flung settler-colonies. Anthelme Thozet won silver medals at the London 1862 International Exhibition for his exhibits of tobacco grown and cigars manufactured in Rockhampton.  He was also awarded silver medals from the Royal Prussian Exhibition, Berlin (1865), the Society d'Acclimatisation, Paris (1875) and the 1872 Lyons International Exhibition.  Thozet's widow presented a collection of 15 of the Thozet family medals to the Rockhampton School of Arts in January 1921.

L-R Cr Tony Williams, Susan Cunningham and Stephen Heyer 
Inspecting the donated medals and other Thozet medals from a private collection 
Thozet medals owned by a private collector which were also displayed during the morning tea function 
L-R Susan Yates, Prof Kerry Walsh, Prof Scott Bowman and Nola Pontifex chat at the Thozet medal morning tea function 
Thozet enthusiast Susan Cunningham addresses the morning tea audience