Clergyman Walter Howchin lecturer on geology of South Australia; gives 53 years to Royal Society
Walter Howchin, at 87, was still actively involved in geological searches in South Australia. He was associated with the Royal Society of South Australia for 53 years.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Walter Howchin straddled the gap between science and god-based beliefs in South Australia in the early 20th Century.
The geologist and clergyman arrived in Adelaide in 1881 to combat a lung disease contracted in England where he had been a Primitive Methodist minister. He had become interested on geology, in particular the fossils of foraminifera (single-celled plankton), while in Northumberland.
In 1878, he became a fellow of Geological Society of London. Howchin’s health returned in Adelaide and he was elected to the Royal Society of South Australia in 1883, starting a 53-years association. He was the society’s editor mostly until 1933, president 1894-96 and published 77 mostly geological papers in its Transactions, the first in 1884 on South Australian cretaceous foraminifera.
Although remaining an ordained Methodist minister, Howchin never had a South Australia circuit but tried to reconcile science and beliefs within the church over Charles Darwin’s work.
In his early Adelaide years, Howchin worked as a journalist and as secretary of Adelaide Children's Hospital. In 1901-23, he was a governor of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery and then honorary palaeontologist to the museum.
He was lecturer in mineralogy at the Adelaide School of Mines in 1899-1904 and, after professor Ralph Tate died, he became lecturer in geology and palaeontology at Adelaide University in 1902; in 1918, he was designated honorary professor. On retirement in 1920, he continued productive work in geology. From 1894, he was closely associated with eminent Australian geologist Edgeworth David.
With the exception of Tate's pioneering work on the tertiary period, Howchin laid the foundation of South Australian stratigraphy. He described the two great glaciations affecting South Australia, the oldest in the Precambrian, and clearly defined stratigraphic sequence in the Adelaide geosyncline.
Howich’s The Geology of South Australia (1918) remained a student text for 40 years. In 1925-30, he contributed to handbooks on the flora and fauna of South Australia: The Building of Australia and the Succession of life, with Special Reference to South Australia.
The Geological Society of London awarded Howchin the Lyell Medal in 1934. He was also the first to receive the Royal Society of South Australia's Verco Medal in 1929. Several fossils were named after him.
