Alfred William Howitt
Encyclopedia
Alfred William Howitt was an Australia
n anthropologist and naturalist
.
, England
, the son of authors William Howitt
and Mary Botham. He came to the Victorian gold fields
in 1852 with his father and brother to visit his uncle, Godfrey Howitt
. Initially, Howitt was a geologist
in Victoria; later, he worked as a gold warden in North Gippsland
. Howitt went on to be appointed Police magistrate & Warden Crown Lands Commissioner; later still, he held the position of Secretary of the Mines Department.
In 1861, the Royal Society of Victoria
appointed Howitt leader of the Victorian Relief Expedition, with the task of establishing the fate of the Burke and Wills expedition
. Howitt was a skilled bushman; he took only the necessary equipment and a small crew on the journey to Cooper Creek
. There, he found sole survivor John King
; Howitt buried Burke
and Wills
before returning to Melbourne
with King. On a follow-up expedition to Cooper Creek in 1862, Howitt recovered the bodies of Burke and Wills for burial at the Melbourne General Cemetery
.
Howitt collected botanical specimens during his expeditions in north-eastern South Australia
, south-western Queensland
and western New South Wales
; his collections were sent to Baron von Mueller
and are now in Melbourne.
Howitt researched the culture and society of Indigenous Australians
, in particular kinship and marriage
; he was influenced by the theories of evolution and anthropology. Howitt's major work (co-authored with Lorimer Fison
) was "Kamilaroi
and Kurnai" (1879), which was recognised internationally as a landmark in the development of the modern science of anthropology; this work was used by others, including the twentieth century anthropologist Norman Tindale
.
In 1863 he married Maria (nickname 'Liney') Boothby; they had five children. Maria was the daughter of Judge Boothby, Chief Justice of the Colony of Victoria.
In 1903 Howitt was awarded the Clarke Medal
by the Royal Society of New South Wales
; in 1904 he received the first Mueller Medal from the Royal Society of Victoria. A memorial fund established after his death was used to buy rare books on topics such as antropology, geology, and botany for the library of the Royal Society; these books were inscribed "Purchased from A. W. Howitt Memorial Fund".
Howitt died in 1908 in Bairnsdale, Victoria
.
Mount Howitt
in Victoria
, and Howitt Hall, one of Monash University
's Halls of Residence are named after him.
Howitt's scientific life shared a special irony with that of his longtime friend Lorimer Fison
. They were both set in motion by Lewis Henry Morgan; Morgan pinned more hope on Fison than on Howitt. However, Fison gave up his scientific pursuit shortly after Morgan's death, whereas Howitt persevered for many years. Howitt's magnum opus, "The Native Tribes of South East Australia" (1904), remains one of the only contemporaneous scientific studies of the native institutions of Central Australian Aborigines.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n anthropologist and naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
.
Background
Howitt was born in NottinghamNottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of authors William Howitt
William Howitt
William Howitt , was an English author.He was born at Heanor, Derbyshire. His parents were Quakers, and he was educated at the Friends public school at Ackworth, Yorkshire. His younger brothers were Richard and Godrey whom he helped tutor. In 1814 he published a poem on the Influence of Nature and...
and Mary Botham. He came to the Victorian gold fields
Victorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...
in 1852 with his father and brother to visit his uncle, Godfrey Howitt
Godfrey Howitt
Godfrey Howitt , entomologist, was born in Heanor in Derbyshire to Thomas Howitt. Thomas had farmed a few acres of land at Heanor and joined the Society of Friends on his marriage with Phoebe Tantum, a member of the same society, with whom he acquired a considerable fortune.Godfrey was educated at...
. Initially, Howitt was a geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
in Victoria; later, he worked as a gold warden in North Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
. Howitt went on to be appointed Police magistrate & Warden Crown Lands Commissioner; later still, he held the position of Secretary of the Mines Department.
In 1861, the Royal Society of Victoria
Royal Society of Victoria
The Royal Society of Victoria is the oldest learned society in the state of Victoria in Australia.The Royal Society of Victoria was formed in 1859 from a merger between The Philosophical Society of Victoria and The Victorian Institute for the Advancement of Science , both founded...
appointed Howitt leader of the Victorian Relief Expedition, with the task of establishing the fate of the Burke and Wills expedition
Burke and Wills expedition
In 1860–61, Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led an expedition of 19 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres...
. Howitt was a skilled bushman; he took only the necessary equipment and a small crew on the journey to Cooper Creek
Cooper Creek
Cooper Creek is one of the most famous and yet least visited rivers in Australia. It is sometimes known as the Barcoo River from one of its tributaries and is one of three major Queensland river systems that flow into the Lake Eyre Basin...
. There, he found sole survivor John King
John King (explorer)
John King was an Irish soldier who achieved fame as an Australian explorer. He was the sole survivor of the four men from the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition who reached the Gulf of Carpentaria...
; Howitt buried Burke
Robert O'Hara Burke
Robert O'Hara Burke was an Irish soldier and police officer, who achieved fame as an Australian explorer. He was the leader of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from the settled...
and Wills
William John Wills
William John Wills was an English surveyor who also trained for a while as a surgeon. He achieved fame as the second-in-command of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from the settled...
before returning to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
with King. On a follow-up expedition to Cooper Creek in 1862, Howitt recovered the bodies of Burke and Wills for burial at the Melbourne General Cemetery
Melbourne General Cemetery
The Melbourne General Cemetery is a large necropolis located north of the city of Melbourne in the suburb of Carlton North.-History:...
.
Howitt collected botanical specimens during his expeditions in north-eastern South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
, south-western Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
and western New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
; his collections were sent to Baron von Mueller
Ferdinand von Mueller
Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, KCMG was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist.-Early life:...
and are now in Melbourne.
Howitt researched the culture and society of Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
, in particular kinship and marriage
Australian Aboriginal kinship
Australian Aboriginal kinship is the system of law governing social interaction, particularly marriage, in traditional Australian Aboriginal culture...
; he was influenced by the theories of evolution and anthropology. Howitt's major work (co-authored with Lorimer Fison
Lorimer Fison
Lorimer Fison was an Australian anthropologist, Methodist minister and journalist.-Early life:Fison was born at Barningham, Suffolk, England, the son of Thomas Fison, a prosperous landowner, and his wife Charlotte, a daughter of the Rev. John Reynolds, who was a translator of seventeenth-century...
) was "Kamilaroi
Kamilaroi
The Kamilaroi or Gamilaraay are an Indigenous Australian people who are from the area between Tamworth and Goondiwindi, and west to Narrabri, Walgett and Lightning Ridge, in northern New South Wales...
and Kurnai" (1879), which was recognised internationally as a landmark in the development of the modern science of anthropology; this work was used by others, including the twentieth century anthropologist Norman Tindale
Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist and entomologist. Born in Perth, his family moved to Tokyo from 1907 to 1915, where his father worked as an accountant at the Salvation Army mission in Japan. Soon after returning to Australia, Tindale got a job at the South...
.
In 1863 he married Maria (nickname 'Liney') Boothby; they had five children. Maria was the daughter of Judge Boothby, Chief Justice of the Colony of Victoria.
In 1903 Howitt was awarded the Clarke Medal
Clarke Medal
The Clarke Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of New South Wales for distinguished work in the Natural sciences.Named in honour of the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, one of the founders of the Society...
by the Royal Society of New South Wales
Royal Society of New South Wales
The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. It was established as the Philosophical Society of Australasia on 27 June 1821...
; in 1904 he received the first Mueller Medal from the Royal Society of Victoria. A memorial fund established after his death was used to buy rare books on topics such as antropology, geology, and botany for the library of the Royal Society; these books were inscribed "Purchased from A. W. Howitt Memorial Fund".
Howitt died in 1908 in Bairnsdale, Victoria
Bairnsdale, Victoria
Bairnsdale is a small city in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. With a population at the 2006 census of 11,282, it is a major regional centre of eastern Victoria along with Traralgon and Sale....
.
Mount Howitt
Mount Howitt
Mount Howitt is a mountain in Victoria, Australia, named for Alfred William Howitt. Located in the Wonangatta Moroka Unit of the Alpine National Park approximately 170 km Northeast of Melbourne....
in Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, and Howitt Hall, one of Monash University
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....
's Halls of Residence are named after him.
Howitt's scientific life shared a special irony with that of his longtime friend Lorimer Fison
Lorimer Fison
Lorimer Fison was an Australian anthropologist, Methodist minister and journalist.-Early life:Fison was born at Barningham, Suffolk, England, the son of Thomas Fison, a prosperous landowner, and his wife Charlotte, a daughter of the Rev. John Reynolds, who was a translator of seventeenth-century...
. They were both set in motion by Lewis Henry Morgan; Morgan pinned more hope on Fison than on Howitt. However, Fison gave up his scientific pursuit shortly after Morgan's death, whereas Howitt persevered for many years. Howitt's magnum opus, "The Native Tribes of South East Australia" (1904), remains one of the only contemporaneous scientific studies of the native institutions of Central Australian Aborigines.
External links
- State Library of Victoria biography
- Bright Sparcs biographical entry
- Brief biograph including photo
- Terra Incognita Burke and Wills online exhibition at the State Library of Victoria.
- Burke & Wills Web A comprehensive website containing many of the historical documents relating to the Burke & Wills Expedition.
- The Burke & Wills Historical Society The Burke & Wills Historical Society.
- Kamilaroi and Kurnai book details, ISBN (10) 0 85575 222 X
- Howitt, Alfred William (1830 - 1908) at Australian Dictionary of Biography