Cunningham, Allan (1791–1839)

English explorer and botanist who explored South America, Australia, and New Zealand, but is best known for exploring the Darling Downs in Australia. Several Australian trees are named after him, as well as Cunninghams Gap, a pass through the Great Dividing Range, Queensland.

Cunningham was born in Wimbledon, Surrey and started his career as a botanist as clerk to the curator of Kew Gardens. Between 1814 and 1831, he was employed by Kew Gardens to collect botanical specimens, and travelled to Rio in this capacity 1814–16, then Sydney, Australia, where he remained 1816–26. In 1826, he visited New Zealand before returning to England 1831. He was elected a fellow of the Linnaean Society 1832. When his brother Richard Cunningham, then colonial botanist for New South Wales, was killed by aborigines in 1835, he accepted this post himself. However, he found the work rather menial and boring, describing it as running the ‘Government Cabbage Garden’. In 1838, he made another journey to New Zealand but had to return to Australia due to ill health. He died in Sydney. Most of his specimens remain at Kew to this day.

Cunningham, Allan (1784–1842)

Scottish poet and biographer. Among his works are Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry (1822), Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1829–33) and an epic poem in 12 parts, The Maid of Elvar (1833). He published an edition of Robert Burns's work in 1834 and biographies of Burns (1836) and Scottish writer David Wilkie (1843).

Born near Dalswinton, Dumfriesshire, Cunningham was apprenticed to his uncle, a builder. In 1810 he went to London and became a journalist. In the same year Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song was published by Robert Cromek, most of which was composed by Cunningham. In 1814 he became secretary to the sculptor Francis Chantrey. Cunningham also published a drama, Sir Marmaduke Maxwell (1822), and edited The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (1825). His songs were mostly in the manner of Burns, and still retain some popularity, especially ‘A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea’ and ‘My Ain Countrie’.