Biography

Scotish-born gardener and botanist at Christchurch Botanic Gardens and Otari Open-Air Native Plant Museum, New Zealand. Walter Brockie was born at Selkirk, southern Scotland, where he trained as a gardener from the age of 14 on the Haining Estate belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch. He served in the First World War at Gallipoli and in the Sinai Desert, and was left for dead after being wounded in the second battle of Gaza. Surviving, he was taken as a prisoner of war and worked on the Berlin-Baghdad railway from 1917-1918.

Brockie returned to Haining following his release and completed his apprenticeship before leaving for New Zealand in 1921. He had intended to travel onwards to California to study citrus cultivation, but decided to stay after his companion on the journey required medical attention in Dunedin. Working for New Zealand Railways for six months he was able to explore much of Otago and the hills around Dunedin. He then found a gardening position at Bushy Park near Dunedin, from whence he moved to Christchurch in 1928. After another appointment as a gardener he was recruited to Christchurch Botanic Gardens, where he developed his interest in native plants by collecting and cultivating them.

He was put in charge of the gardens' New Zealand native section in 1930 and was responsible for setting out the Cockayne Memorial Garden, opened by Professor Carl Skottsberg in 1938. The garden included hundreds of alpine species collected by Brockie from mountains in the north of the South Island. He also directed the construction of the rock garden of exotic mountain plants, and acted as curator from 1943-1944.

In the 1940s he carried out a study of Ranunculus paucifolius Kirk. found in Castle Hill. His work led to an area being set aside as a reserve for the species in the wild. Brockie also met the grass specialist Harry Talbot in the early 1940s, with whom he partnered up to make a series of fruitful collecting trips in the Spenser Mountains, around Lake Cobb, Lake Ohau, Castle Hill, the Hohonui Range and Gouland Downs among other locations. In 1946-1947 Brockie visited Campbell Island, where he gathered many live plants as well as herbarium specimens that were divided between WELT, Harry Talbot, the Botany Division of the Department for Scientific and Industrial Research and N. Lothian at Adelaide Botanic Gardens. He also collected seeds for the Royal Horticultural Society. Other localities he explored include the Garvie Mountains, Otago (with Carl Teschner), Canterbury and Marlborough (with George Simpson) and Mt. Terako (with J.K. Forbes).

Brockie left Christchurch in 1947 to take up the post of curator at the Otari Open-Air Native Plant Museum at Wilton, Wellington, where he remained until his retirement in 1962. Here he constructed another large rock garden filled with native plants, while continuing his botanical research, in which he increasingly specialised in creating hybrids. He published the results of his experiments in this endeavour with the large genus Epilobium in 1959 and 1966. After his retirement to Richmond, Nelson, Brockie once more created a native rock garden, this time at Pollard Park, Blenheim.

Brockie was a Fellow of the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture from 1947 and received the Loder Cup in 1945. He served as secretary and botanist to the Board of Trustees of Riccarton Bush, Christchurch, and represented the Canterbury Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand on its board. He was also a member of the Wellington Botanical Society. A number of species were discovered by him and named in his honour, including Wahlenbergia brockiei J.A. Hay, Scleranthus brockiei P.A.Williamson, Hebe brockiei G.Simpson & J.S.Thomson and Myosotis brockiei L.B.Moore & M.J.A.Simpson. He was married from 1931 to Vera Ellison, with whom he had a son and two daughters.

Sources:
J.A. Simpson, 1974, "Obituary: Walter Boa Brockie, N.D.H. (N.Z.), F.R.I.H. (N.Z.), 1897-1972", New Zealand Journal of Botany, 12: 149-156.