Henry Dresser Atkinson

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Henry Dresser Atkinson (1841–1921) was an Australian clergyman and amateur naturalist who worked in Tasmania in the late 1800s. He lived in Stanley and Evandale and collected specimens around Circular Head.

He was born in Selby, Yorkshire, England, the son of Reverend Henry Atkinson, vicar of Barmby and headmaster at Read School, Drax. He studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge, from 1860 to 1863. His brother Edwin Dresser Atkinson became a geologist and fossil collector. Henry was the father of Henry Brune Atkinson (1874–1960), who was also a clergyman with an interest in natural history; Henry Brune’s mother was Sarah Ann Ward, and he was said to have been wet-nursed by Truganini.

Atkinson wrote a short book titled Jottings of Tasmanian Bird-Life (around 1888), with commentary from W. V. Legge. He served on the biological consultation committee of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science and contributed to its sixth report and to a 1898 List of Vernacular Names for Australian Birds. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Tasmania in 1870. He collected molluscs and sent many shells to Julian Tenison-Woods, who named Scissurella atkinsoni after him.

He died in Hobart on 26 June 1921, aged 80, and was buried in Cornelian Bay Cemetery.