Ernest Clayton Andrews

Ernest Clayton Andrews (18 October 1870 – 1 July 1948) was an Australian geologist and botanist.

Andrews was born in Balmain, New South Wales, second chid of Fearleigh Leonard Montague, artist, and Alice Maud, née Smith. At three years of age, he and his sister were unofficially adopted by John Andrews and his wife Mary Ann, née Bennett. He was educated at the Teachers' College, Sydney, and graduated from the University of Sydney (B.A., 1894) with second-class honours in mathematics.

At the University, he was influenced by the professor of geology, Edgeworth David; later David chose him for geological expeditions to Fiji and Tonga. In 1898 he presented his first geological paper in Sydney to the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1901 with Charles Hedley he examined the Queensland coast and Great Barrier Reef.

In 1908, at the invitation of the eminent geologist Grove Karl Gilbert, Andrews went to the United States of America, where he hiked and climbed with Gilbert in the Californian Sierra Nevada range. Andrews made the first ascent of Mt. Darwin, elevation 13,837 feet, and its difficult summit pinnacle.

Andrews wrote three important papers on the theory of erosion, including Corrasion by gravity streams. Later he was taught field biology and published papers on Myrtaceae and Leguminosae. Andrews was president of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1921; president of the Linnean Society of New South Wales in 1937 and president of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (A.N.Z.A.A.S.) 1930-32. In 1928, he was awarded the Clarke Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales and in 1931 he was awarded the Lyell Medal by the Geological Society of London.

References

• G. P. Walsh, 'Andrews, Ernest Clayton (1870 - 1948)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, MUP, 1979, pp 67-69.