Frederick William Whitehouse

Frederick William Whitehouse
Born (1900-12-20)December 20, 1900
Ipswich, Queensland, Australia
Died March 22, 1973(1973-03-22) (aged 72)
Nationality Australian
Fields Geologist, Naturalist
Alma mater Ipswich Grammar School, University of Queensland, St John's College, University of Cambridge
Notable awards Walter Burfitt prize and medal
F.W. Whitehouse, Morotai, 1945

Frederick William Whitehouse (20 December 1900 – 22 March 1973) was a noted geologist, born in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia.

Education

Frederick Whitehouse attended Ipswich Grammar School, and went on to study at the University of Queensland. He graduated with a B.Sc., with first-class Honours in geology and mineralogy from the University of Queensland in 1922, and a government gold medal for outstanding merit.

In 1922, he won a University Foundation Travelling scholarship to St John's College, University of Cambridge, where he took his Ph.D in 1925, the first person from Queensland to take a Ph.D from Cambridge. Dorothy Hill in her obituary for Whitehouse, would note that of his graduating class at Ipswich Grammar School, three students would become Rhodes Scholars at Oxford, while he himself won his scholarship to Cambridge.[1][2] His thesis was on marine Cretaceous sequences of Australia. He and fellow student Dorothy Hill, had collected many fossils during their studies at UQ, which had advanced their individual and shared research in the field.

He was awarded a D.Sc. in 1939 (UQ) for the outstanding pioneer work on Cambrian trilobites of the Georgina Basin which gained him international recognition.[3]

Career

On his return to Queensland, Whitehouse was appointed government geologist. In 1926, he began lecturing in geology at the University of Queensland; over three decades he was to alternate between working for the State government and the university. He helped to map the geology of western Queensland while studying the region's fossil fauna. In 1940, he was president of the Royal Society of Queensland. In 1941 he was awarded the Royal Society of New South Wales's Walter Burfitt prize and medal for his work on the stratigraphy of the Great Artesian Basin.

In 1946-47, Whitehouse was seconded to the Department of the Co-ordinator-General of Public Works; he was a member of the committee on postwar reconstruction and was involved with the northern Australia development project. He resumed lecturing at the University of Queensland in 1948, and was promoted to associate-professor in 1949. Continuing his studies on the stratigraphy of the artesian basin, he described the natural leakage from the system, particularly the mound springs. This was probably his most significant contribution to geology, and was published as an appendix, 'The Geology of the Queensland Portion of the Great Australian Artesian Basin', in the report, Artesian Water Supplies in Queensland (1954). He was also interested in quaternary geomorphology.[4]

Whitehouse was Associate Professor of Geology, University of Queensland (1949-1955). He gave a long (1934-1953) series of nationally broadcast lectures and news reviews over the ABC on a wide range of geological topics. He strove to introduce geology more widely to Queensland schools and compiled and freely circulated 50 different geological pamphlets, which described the geology of the area in which a school resided. He provided several identified sets of rocks, minerals and fossils to more than 100 schools.[5]

Whitehouse resigned from the University in 1955. He continued to work as a geological consultant for many oil companies from 1955, and was president of the Anthropological Society of Queensland from 1972 to 1973.[6] He was a leading member of the Brisbane Aquarium Society, and a bryologist. He was also instrumental (as is detailed in The Mayne Inheritance) of gaining the major bequest of land, which enabled relocation of the University to its St Lucia site.[7] Whitehouse was a close friend of Dr James O'Neil Mayne (1861-1939), who with his sister Mary Emelia Mayne purchased land in St Lucia in 1926, which was to become the new site of the University of Queensland. Whitehouse died in 1973.

Military Service

On 7 July 1941 Whitehouse enlisted in the AIF. Commissioned a lieutenant, Royal Australian Engineers, in January 1942, he applied his geological knowledge to road-building in Queensland and New Guinea in 1942-43, and to formulating procedures for amphibious assaults across coral reefs in 1944-45. He travelled extensively in the South-West Pacific Area and in September 1945 rose to temporary Lieutenant Colonel. Mentioned in dispatches for his work, he was demobilized on 21 December 1945.[8]

References

  1. ↑ "IPSWICH GRAMMAR SCHOOL". qldhistorians.org.au. Retrieved 2016-03-16.
  2. ↑ Hill, Dorothy (1973). "Obituary: Frederick William Whitehouse". Dorothy Hill Collection UQFL25, Box 58.
  3. ↑ "Frederick William Whitehouse - biography". www.anbg.gov.au. Retrieved 2015-11-10.
  4. ↑ Chapman, Richard E. Whitehouse, Frederick William (1900–1973). Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  5. ↑ "Frederick William Whitehouse - biography". www.anbg.gov.au. Retrieved 2015-11-10.
  6. ↑ Chapman, Richard E. Whitehouse, Frederick William (1900–1973). Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  7. ↑ "Frederick William Whitehouse - biography". www.anbg.gov.au. Retrieved 2015-11-10.
  8. ↑ Chapman, Richard E. Whitehouse, Frederick William (1900–1973). Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.

External links

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