The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Hutton, Captain Frederick Wollaston
Hutton, Captain Frederick Wollaston, Professor of Biology, Canterbury College, N.Z., son of the Rev. H. F. Hutton, was born on Nov. 16th, 1836, at Gate Burton, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, and educated at 8outhwell and the Royal Naval Academy, Gosport. Failing to get an appointment in the navy, he entered the merchant service in 1851, but afterwards studied civil engineering. In 1855 he entered the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and went out to the Crimea. In the army he served also in China, in India through the Mutiny, at Malta, and in Ireland. He was gazetted captain on Dec 18th, 1862, but in Nov. 1865 sold out and emigrated to New Zealand. Here he was appointed by the Provincial Government of Auckland to report upon certain gold and coalfields. Subsequently he reported upon the defences of the various harbours in New Zealand. Captain Hutton was successively Assistant Geologist to the Geological Survey, teacher of Natural Science in Wellington College, and in 1873 Provincial Geologist of Otago. In Feb. 1877 he was made Professor of Natural Science in the University of Otago, and in Oct. 1879 became Professor of Biology at Canterbury College, Christchurch. Captain Hutton has contributed numerous papers to scientific magazines on the biology and geology of New Zealand, and was one of the chief supporters of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. He is the author of "Class Book of Elementary Geology," 1875; "Studies in Biology for New Zealand Students," 1880.