Murphy, Patricia Joan (née Perkins)   (1930 - 2006)

She was born on 13 May 1930 in Victoria; died on 23 September 2006 at Ballarat, Victoria.

Her father was a primary school headmaster, Arthur Frederick Perkins. Pat's mother, Mildred, was born in Dorset, England and came to Australia with her parents when she was a child.

She was the eldest of five children, and the family lived in the schoolhouse at Devon Meadows on the Mornington Peninsula.

She attended Dandenong High School, then obtained her Leaving Certificate by correspondence.

She became a student teacher and was offered a position in Gippsland. However, it was at that point that she met Bill Murphy while playing tennis and they were married on 11 November 1950 at Cranbourne.

When Pat's father became headmaster of a school in Ballarat not long afterwards, Bill and Pat decided to move there as well. Their five children were born in Ballarat.

She was always interested in nature, but she began recording plant observations and collecting specimens after she and her husband Bill joined the Field Naturalists' Club of Ballarat (FNCB) in 1968.

Pat had met Stella Bedggood who invited her to come to a field naturalists' club meeting in Ballarat. The guest speaker was Jim Willis. Pat and Bill went to the meeting and were enthralled.

Pat's interest in plants was further increased after she helped Cliff Beauglehole to find and collect specimens as part of the Land Conservation Council survey of the Ballarat region.

When Cliff visited Ballarat on collecting trips, he stayed with the Murphy family at their home in Dana Street, on one occasion staying for two weeks. Pat accompanied Cliff every day to locations around Ballarat.

After Bill retired in 1987, he and Pat went out together and Bill took photographs of plants for her. It was at this point that Pat's collection changed from occasional specimens of plants which were unusual in themselves or in a particular location, to an extensive collection of all plants, and the collection itself became her focus along with her plant lists.

In later life, Pat worked on a field guide to the Wattles of Ballarat. This was her project, and although she died before it was finished, the guide was completed by the FNCB and Bill Murphy and was produced by the FNCB in 2009.

Her expertise was sought by government agencies such as the Land Conservation Council and Central Highlands Water, and was utilised in a number of local conservation initiatives.

She collected plant specimens from the early 1960s with her principal collecting period being from 1989 to 2006. While a few of Murphy's plant collections were sent to the National Herbarium of Victoria during her lifetime, a collection of over 1,100 specimens was donated to the Herbarium in 2007. [these do not appear to be in the AVH map below]

In 1993 Murphy was awarded the Field Naturalists' Club of Ballarat Medal for her wide-ranging contributions to Club activities.

NOTE: It is easy to confuse her collections in AVH with those of "Murphy, Percy Joseph" (1888—1958) with the same initials, but he collected in the period from 1909 to 1941.

Source: Extracted from:
https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P008045b.htm
https://cdn.rbg.vic.gov.au/media/te3nhh1j/muelleria_vol_36_-_pp22-50_kruss_-_a_passion_for_plants-_pjmurphy-ilovepdf-compressed.pdf
Susan Kruss (2018) 'A passion for plants: The botanical contribution of collector P.J. Murphy', Muelleria, 36: 22-50 36: 22-50
The Ryerson Index - MURPHY Patricia Joan
Portrait Photo: 1999, Susan Kruss (2018) 'A passion for plants . . .' (above)

Collecting localities for 'Murphy, P.J.' (with date filtered) from AVH (2026)

Data from 48 specimens