Thomas Powell was born in
Cookham Dean, Berkshire and attended Hackney Theological Academy from 1839. He was ordained 29 May 1844 and left London 6 June 1844 with his wife on the inaugural voyage of the missionary barque
John Williams. They arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on 24 August;
Hobart,
Van Dieman's Land on 10 October;
Sydney,
New South Wales, on 27 October; and
Tutuila,
Samoa, on 31 January 1845 and
Apia,
Upolu, Samoa, on 3 February 1845, en route to their posting at
Savai'i. In the absence of Archibald Murray from
Pago Pago, Tutuila, he took charge of that station, arriving there 13 March 1845. He was suffering from
malaria but went against Geddie's wishes. He later wrote that a disagreement had occurred between the missionaries. On his return to Samoa, Powell was stationed at
Tutuila where he remained for a large part of his time. As a botanist, Powell had special interests in
bryophytes, fungi and
lichens.
Herbarium specimens collected by him in the south Pacific region between 1860 and 1890 have been indexed by the
Linnean Society of London and a list of the material was published by the society in 2011. This included the distribution of herbarium specimens as part of an
exsiccata-like series
Mosses of Samoa (c. 1867). He identified many of the Samoan names of plants and his paper on the subject,
On Various Samoan Plants and Their Vernacular Names, was published in the 1868
Journal of Botany, British and Foreign, volume 6. Other papers forwarded to the Linnean Society by Powell included details of the poisons used by Samoan islanders to tip arrows and spears. He also submitted a paper on the formation of Atolls. The paper was read, but due to a critical review by
Charles Darwin, it was not published. Powell helped
George Pratt compile his dictionary of the
Samoan language. He also transcribed the Samoan story of the creation, told to him by a Samoan chief—Taua-nu'u. This is a valuable record of the islanders beliefs before the arrival of the missionaries. In 1886, he published a book called
A Manual of Zoology Embracing the Animals of the Scripture, in the Samoan dialect. Many of the animals would have been unknown to the Samoans, so Powell included illustrations where possible. After his death his wife forwarded some of his papers written in Samoan to the Rev. George Pratt in Sydney Australia. Due to failing eyesight Pratt was unable to make use of the works but a colleague, John Fraser, translated the manuscripts of Samoan myths and folks songs and published them in 1896. His interests extended to ornithology and he corresponded with
Philip Sclater, secretary of the Zoological Society of London, sending specimens for identification. These were passed to
Osbert Salvin who presented his findings to the Society in a report 6 January 1879. ==Bully Hayes==