Octavius William Borrell

Octavius William Borrell (19 January 1916 – 18 July 2007) was a Marist Brother, missionary school teacher and botanist.

Life until 1952 Octavius William Borrell was born in Greek Smyrna (today İzmir, Turkey) on 19 January 1916. In 1931, at the age of 15, he joined the Marist Order, and continued his secondary schooling at the Marist Brothers training college at Herakleion. From September 1935 until 1952, Brother William taught at Collège Sainte Jeanne D'Arc, a French–English bilingual school in Shanghai, with additional teaching at Collège Saint Ignace. During this period, he continued his own education, completing his baccalauréat. With a colleague at the museum, Brother Paul August, together they wrote the manuscript, Flore de Changhai. It is unclear if any of the plant collections made in this period have been preserved.

Teaching after 1952, and retirement Borrell continued to teach in schools, including in Dumfries, Scotland, in Malaya, Sarawak, and Taiwan. He went on to teach at St. Francis Xavier's College, Kowloon, Hong Kong From 1974 to 1979, and again in 1980, he was posted to Saint Xavier's Secondary School on Kairiru Island in Wewak, East Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Borrell visited the Shanghai Botanical Garden, and collected on the rapidly urbanising outskirts of Shanghai, to ultimately produce an English-language translation and revision of his Trees and Shrubs of Shanghai manuscript, which became the multi-volume Flora of the Shanghai Area.

Brother William died on 18 July 2007 at Bulleen, Victoria, Australia, aged 91. Collections that he made during a posting to Kairiru, Wewak Islands, in Papua New Guinea are held by the Australian National Herbarium. Duplicates of collections made on Kairiru, were sent to the Papua New Guinea National Herbarium at Lae Botanic Gardens.

Unpublished papers The State Botanical Collection of Victoria, held at the National Herbarium of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria includes Brother William's unpublished papers, and manuscripts. This also includes an unpublished typescript of Shanghai Trees and Shrubs. The University of Melbourne Archives include field notes, and records relating to plants of Hong Kong, and a typeset paper on The Ferns of Hong Kong.