Gordon Herriot Cunningham, 1892-1962

Abstract

In considering the career of G. H. Cunningham one has to keep in mind the state of mycology and plant pathology in New Zealand at the time of the First World War. The knowledge of flowering plants there had by then become well advanced not only in floristics generally but also in vegetation studies of a specialized and peculiar kind. Cunningham was a pioneer in plant pathology and taxonomic mycology in New Zealand, and so far as he himself was concerned, started from scratch. Gordon Herriot Cunningham was born on 27 August 1892 at Moa Flat, Otago, New Zealand, the second of seven children. His father was born in Perthshire, Scotland, and trained as an architect at Perth Academy; he emigrated in 1882, serving as a cadet on the Moa Flat sheep station, later becoming manager. His mother, Helen Donaldson Cunningham ( née Heriot), was born at Waihola, Otago. Her parents had emigrated from Heriot, Scotland, and were sheep-farming at Heriot, Otago. Cunningham knew nothing of his grandparents and great-grandparents beyond that they were of Scottish farming stock. Furthermore when he married, in 1918, his bride Madge Leslie ( née McGregor) was the daughter of a sheep farmer whose parents came from Scotland in 1847. He certainly was infused with a family tradition of farming which in New Zealand had been canalized into the rapidly expanding and highly successful rearing of sheep. Moa Flat sheep station then covered 350 000 acres of which 75 000 acres were freehold, the bulk of these Crown Lease and mostly tussock country where sheep could be grazed during summer and autumn. The greater part was under snow for four or five months, consequently the carrying capacity of the station was limited by the area available for wintering the stock, which was about 75 000 sheep and 5000 cattle.