Sydney Parkinson

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Sydney Parkinson (1745 - January 1771) was a Scottish botanical illustrator and natural history artist.

Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks to travel with him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. Parkinson made nearly a thousand drawings of plants and animals on the voyage. He had to work in difficult conditions, living and working in a small cabin surrounded by hundreds of specimens. In Tahiti he was plagued by swarms of flies which ate the paint as he worked. He died at sea from Malaria and dysentary contracted at Batavia, on the way to Cape Town.

Parkinson is commemorated in the common and scientific name of the Parkinson's Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni.

Reference

Birds - The Art of Ornithology, Jonathan Elphick (2004) ISBN 1-902686-39-X

The standard author abbreviation Parkinson may be used to indicate this person in citing a botanical name.

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