Biography

Surveyor and bryologist in Australia. Born in Edinburgh, Richard Bastow eloped to North America in 1862 with Catherine Broadbent. They returned to Britain after some years, but then moved to Australia with their young son. Settling in Tasmania, Bastow was appointed town surveyor in Hobart. The couple had four more children, two of whom survived to maturity along with Bastow's elder son, Austin.

Bastow's interest in cryptogams developed in Tasmania and he published his Mosses of Tasmania in 1886. He continued to pursue his interest after moving to Victoria in 1888, where he was employed in the Public Works Department as an architectural draughtsman. He was an active member of the Field Naturalists' Club and the Royal Society of Victoria, and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London from 1885-1889.

As well as collecting mosses, Bastow amassed a collection of 10,000 shells, which his son donated to the National Museum of Melbourne after his father's death. His plants, meanwhile, were deposited at the National Herbarium of Victoria in Melbourne. Several species are named in Bastow's honour, including the sea snail Asperdaphne bastowi Gatfliff & Gabriel and Orbitestella bastowi Gatliff.

Sources:
J.H. Willis, 1949, "Botanical Pioneers in Victoria", Victorian Naturalist, 66: 83-89.