Walter John Synnot, soldier, plant collector and botanical artist, was the son of Sir Walter Synnot and his wife Lady Jane Seton. He joined the 66th Regiment of Foot (Berkshire) as an ensign and was promoted to captain in 1797. By 1820 he was a half-pay captain in the 89th Regiment. In that year he led a party of 25 settlers from Wicklow, Ireland, to the Cape of Good Hope in the ship Fanny. He was accompanied by his second wife, Elizabeth, and his five children. The party was sent by ship to Saldanha Bay, to be settled along the Jan Dissels River near Clanwilliam. However, the site proved unsuitable as a result of poor grazing, insufficient water and a lack of suitable agricultural soil. Most of the settlers were consequently transferred to the Eastern Cape at the government's expense, but Synnot and some others remained. He was appointed deputy landdrost at Clanwilliam in 1821 and held this post to 1825. During these years he sent many bulbs and some plants of the family Geraniaceae to England. According to the London nurseryman Robert Sweet he sent more new and rare Cape bulbs to England than any other individual. Sweet named the genus Synnotia (Family Iridaceae) after him. During 1822-1823 Synnot created a manuscript volume with 176 watercolours of Cape plants which is now in the collections of the University of Melbourne and was described by Rowse (2011).

Synnot returned to Ireland in 1825 with a large collection of bulbs and seeds which he sold in England. In 1836 he emigrated to Tasmania, where he remained for the rest of his life. He married Catherine Margaret Smith, with whom he had a son (Walter) and a daughter. After his wife died in 1807 he married Elizabeth Houston in 1816, with whom he had 10 more children. He was survived by his third wife, Mary Jane Mather. Captain Walter Synnot should not be confused with his eldest son, Walter Synnot junior, who was born in 1807 and died in 1861.

List of sources:

African court calendar and directory, 1822-1825. Reprinted by SA Library, Cape Town, 1982.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2021-01-06 12:15:34