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Andrew Bloxam (22 September 1801 – 2 February 1878) was an English clergyman and naturalist; in his later life he had a particular interest in botany. He was the naturalist on board during its voyage around South America and the Pacific in 1824–26, where he collected mainly birds. Later as a Church of England minister he lived in Warwickshire and Leicestershire and made significant contributions to the study of the natural history of the area. His special interest was in fungi and the genera Rubus and Rose. His botanical author abbreviation is "A.Bloxam".
In the autumn of 1824, he was appointed as a naturalist on board , commanded by Capt. Lord Byron, cousin of the poet George Gordon Byron. His brother, R. Rowland Bloxam (1798–1877), was the chaplain. The voyage lasted over 18 months, during which time he visited South America and various islands of the Pacific, including the Galápagos Islands and the Hawaiian Islands (then called the Sandwich Islands). Most of Bloxam's collections during the voyage eventually found their way to the British Museum.
After returning from the voyage on 15 March 1826, he was ordained on 25 June 1826 (Trinity Sunday) as a Church of England minister.Bloxam MS letter reproduced in ; date of Trinity Sunday derived from A Perpetual Easter and Passover Calculator He spent some time in Leicestershire and as a curate in Atherstone, before he became the Vicar of Twycross ( 1840). He remained there until c. 1872, when he was made Vicar of Radford Semele and shortly afterwards Rector of Harborough Magna, where he died on 2 February 1878. He was married to Ann(e) Roby.
The party remained in the Hawaiian Islands from 4 May to 18 July 1825. They left planning to go to Tahiti, but actually landed first at Malden Island on 30 July 1825 and then at Mauke in the Cook Islands on 8 August 1825, before returning to Valparaíso, which they reached on 6 September 1825. After spending some time exploring the coast of Chile, they finally left Valparaíso on 13 October 1825, bound for St Helena in the South Atlantic, which they reached on 23 January 1826, leaving five days later. The voyage ended back in Spithead, England on 15 March 1826, after an absence of 532 days.
For a long time the only published record of Bloxam's naturalising during the voyage was a very short section in Graham's book. Only in 1925 was his diary published. Between 1986 and 1996, Olson published detailed studies of Bloxam's ornithological work in the Hawaiian Islands, based on both the diary and unpublished notebooks. Although Olson echoes criticisms of Bloxam ("the ship's callow, humble, and none too ardent naturalist"), he also says that those descriptions which Bloxam did produce are of "commendable accuracy" and that the methods he used to prepare specimens ensured that they survived in "remarkably good condition".
Having been appointed by the Admiralty, on his return Bloxam had written to thank them and to give an account of the specimens he had collected. A barrel contained Geology and Mineralogy specimens, along with insects, shells and other marine objects from South America and the Pacific islands visited by the Blonde. Two cases contained "about one hundred" specimens of birds., quoting a Bloxam Manuscript Of these, 27 specimens of 11 species were from the Hawaiian Islands.
One of Bloxam's most well-known bird collections was the Oahu thrush, which he originally called Turdus woahensis (now Myadestes lanaiensis woahensis). Bloxam's 1825 specimens are the only ones in existence, since this rather dull olive-brown thrush-like bird was the first bird species in the Hawaiian islands to become extinct. Bloxam recorded that it was common and that its "melodious notes" came from the only songster on the island of Oahu.; 2009-12-06 Another of his scientific discoveries was the Oahu ʻakepa, which he named Fringilla rufa (now Loxops wolstenholmei or L. coccineus wolstenholmei). This bird too is now extinct.
Bloxam also noticed that the Hawaiian nectar-feeding birds were different from both Hummingbird and the genus with which they were then associated, Certhia (creepers). He put them into a new genus Nectarina and wrote that in their flight they resembled finches. It was some 150 years later that it was accepted that the Hawaiian honeycreepers (now in several different genera) had evolved from cardueline finches.
In 1995, Olson named the greater Patagonian conure after Bloxam ( Cyanoliseus patagonus bloxami). Bloxam collected a specimen in 1825 near Concepcion, Chile.
In 1875, not long before he died, Bloxam was visited by Bagnall, who later wrote that Bloxam was "still full of love for botanical pursuits, with quite a host of brambles and roses cultivated in his garden, so that he might watch them more readily, and I shall always remember with pleasure my walk with him in the lanes around his village, where he pointed out the various special Rubi and Roses of that locality."
Bloxam was also interested in fungi. He was associated with M.J. Berkeley, another clergyman from the English Midlands, who has been called the founder of British mycology. In 1854, Berkeley and his co-worker Broome gave a fungal genus the name Bloxamia in honour of Bloxam's work on the group of fungi then called the Sphaeriacei; they also named after him Agaricus bloxamii (now called Bloxam's Entoloma, Entoloma bloxamii). Bloxam gave new scientific names to at least 11 species of fungi in the Index Fungorum, including the Toasted Waxcap, now Hygrocybe colemanniana.
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