Alfred William Howitt

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Alfred William Howitt (17 April 1830 – 7 March 1908) was an Australian anthropologist and naturalist.

Howitt was born in Nottingham, England, the son of well-known authors William Howitt and Mary Botham. He came to the Victorian gold fields in 1852 with his father and brother. He became a public servant in the colony of Victoria. He was a geologist. He became a gold warden in North Gippsland and was later appointed Police magistrate & Warden Crown Lands Commissioner. He eventually held the position of Secretary of the Mines Department.

In 1861, the Royal Society of Victoria appointed Howitt as leader of the Victorian Relief Expedition, whose task was to establish the fate of Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, leaders of the Burke and Wills expedition. Howitt travelled to Coopers Creek where he found John King, the sole survivor of the four men who had been the first to travel across Australia from south to north. Howitt then buried Burke and Wills at Coopers Creek before taking John King back to Melbourne. Howitt's skills as a bushman are acknowledged, he took only the necessary equipment and a small crew and he made the journey to Cooper's Creek more quickly than Burke. On a follow-up expedition to Coopers Creek in 1862, Howitt recovered the bodies of Burke and Wills for burial in Melbourne as well as collecting botanical specimens 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 developing at the time and anthropological theory. His major work Kamilaroi and Kurnai (1879) was recognised internationally as a landmark in the development of the modern science of anthropology. His work was use by many others including the twentieth century anthopologist Norman Tindale.

In 1903 he was awarded the Clarke Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales in and 1904 he received the first Mueller Award 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".

In 1863 he married Maria (nickname 'Liney') Boothby, daughter of the late Judge Boothby, Chief Justice of the Colony of Victoria. They had five children. 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.

[edit] References

Serle, Percival (1949). “Howitt, Alfred William”, Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
Walker, Mary Howitt (1971). Come wind, come weather; a biography of Alfred Howitt. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-83962-2.
Howitt, Alfred William, 1870, 15 March 1870. "Experiences in Central Australia". Gippsland Times.
Howitt, Alfred William, 1878. "Notes on the Aborigines of Coopers Creek". In R. B. Smyth (Ed.), The Aborigines of Victoria.
Howitt, Alfred William, 1889. "Note as to descent in the Dieri tribe". Journal of the Anthropological Institute. Vol. 19, p. 90.
Howitt, Alfred William, 1890. "The Dieri and other kindred tribes of Central Australia". Journal of the Anthropological Institute. Vol. 20, pp. 30-104.
Howitt, Alfred William, 1898. "Reminiscences of Central Australia". Alma Mater. Vol. 3 (No. 1).
Howitt, Alfred William, 1904. The native tribes of south-east Australia. London: Macmillan.
Howitt, Alfred William, 1907. "Personal reminiscences of Central Australia and the Burke and Wills Expedition: Presidents inaugural address". Journal of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. 1907 (Adelaide, 1907.), 43p.
Howitt, Alfred William, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, & Siebert Otto, 1904. Legends of the Dieri and kindred tribes of Central Australia. London: Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.