Joseph Burke (12 June 1812 in Bristol, England – 23 January 1873 in Harrisonville, US) was a collector of plants and animals for Lord Derby.
[1] Burke was employed as a gardener for Lord Derby, an enthusiastic natural history collector with his own menagerie at Prescot, Lancashire.
In 1839 Lord Derby commissioned Karl Zeyher to collect plants and animals in southern Africa, delegating Burke to organise the expedition.
Here he arranged for a wagon and oxen to transport him, and set out on 23 May to Uitenhage where he planned to meet up with Zeyher for their joint expedition to the hinterland to the north.
A smallpox outbreak in Cape Town caused usually hospitable farmers along the way to bar their homes to visitors, creating accommodation problems for Burke.
The Magalies River valley was teeming with game, and they spent 2 weeks shooting and skinning a large variety of mammals and birds, including hippopotamus, black rhino, eland, zebra, kudu, waterbuck and wildebeest.
Burke recorded that the area was teeming with rhino and lion; they made camp here and stayed for several weeks, collecting numerous specimens and live young animals.
They thereupon returned to their camp in the Magaliesberg and on 17 November received a visit from the Swedish naturalist Wahlberg, who had travelled up from Port Natal.
This species is remarkable in that it is in effect an underground tree which only appears above ground during the flowering season, spending the winter months in a state of dormancy.
He subsequently went on a joint expedition with collectors from Kew to Hudson Bay and California, settled 180 acres in Cass County, Missouri, successfully participated in the California Gold Rush on 1849, and served as a First Lieutenant in the Union Army during the United States Civil War (even as family members served in the Confederate Army).
Joseph was born May 13, 1812, in Bristol, England, and died at age 60 in Cass County, Harrisonville, MO, US, on January 23, 1873.