Arnold, Joseph   (1782 - 1818)

Born in Beccles, Suffolk, on 28 December 1782; died 26 July 1818 in Padang, Sumatra, (Netherlands East Indies).

He was schooled at John Leman's Free School and at the age of sixteen apprenticed to apothecary William Crowfoot. Arnold learned surgery in Edinburgh and received an MD in 1806.

He was employed as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy (1808-1815) and later Surgeon Superintendent of Northampton carrying convicts to Botany Bay (1815).

In 1809 he was attached to HMS 'Hindostan' carrying Lachlan Macquarie and the 73rd Regiment to Sydney. He again came to Sydney in 1815 as the first surgeon superintendent of convict ship 'Northhampton'.

After trying unsuccessfully to practice medicine in Sydney, he set out for the return trip to England. But the ship carrying him caught fire, leaving him stranded in Batavia.

On the recommendation of Joseph Banks he became Naturalist under Stamford Raffles, travelling to Asia with him in 1818, and made extensive collections of plants, fossils and shells in Indonesia.

The genus Arnoldia Blume is named in his honour but by far the best known plant named after him is the bizarre Rafflesia arnoldii R. Br., the world's largest flower, which he discovered in Sumatra.

His journal, written from 1809 to 1815 is held in the Mitchel Library, Sydney.

His plant collections are held in the Natural History Museum (BM), London.