SCIENTIST HONOURED

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 254, 23 July 1936, Page 8

SCIENTIST HONOURED

Hector Medal Presented to Dr. W. R. B. Oliver RESEARCH IN BOTANY The 1936 Hector Medal for research in botany was presented to Dr. W. R. B. Oliver, D.Sc., F.R.S.N.Z., Director of the Dominion Museum, Wellington, by the president of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Rt. Rev. Dr. H. W. Williams, Bishop of Waiapu, at a meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society last night. Bishop Williams said he regarded it as a very pleasant duty that had brought him there that evening. He felt that it was an honour to be allowed to present the medal. Dr. Hector was the father of the society. He was one of the prime movers when the New Zealand Institute was .founded, and was for some years its director. was also its first president. He was a man who, in the days when science was not quite so specialised as now, had very wide interests In a number of sciences, Bishop Williams said. The society had decided that one of the best ways of perpetuating his memory was to raise funds for the presentation of a medal to be granted annually for work in biology, chemistry, botany and others, taken seriatum. This year the subject was botany, and the committee had decided to award the medal to Dr. Oliver, who was very well qualified to receive the medal. If it had not been given to him for botany it might quite well have been given to him for biology. Bishop Williams then briefly reviewed Dr. Oliver’s career. He had had varied experiences. For a time he was

in the Customs Department, and then he had been able to devote himself to scientific pursuits. Finally, he had been appointed Director of the Dominion Museum. ,•

“I want to express my sincere appreciation of the high honour which has been bestowed on me," Dr. Oliver said in reply. “The Royal Society of New Zealand is a long-established society with a world-wide reputation, so that the awards it makes from time to time are much coveted by those who work in science in New Zealand. I feel that now I have this medal I will have to set to work to do something really serious to earn it.” Help of Others Acknowledged. “No one can get very far in any subject or study without the help of others,” Dr. Oliver proceeded, in going on to relate briefly two incidents which had influenced his life. The first one took him back to the time when he was 10 or 12 years old at Brown River, 10 miles from Hobart, where with other boys he had the time of his life picking up bugs and beetles from the post holes. Then there was a man named Williamson who sold shells to visitors from Hobart. He was sure that it was that man’s interest and encouragement that largely turned him io zoology and biology. The second influence, Dr. Oliver continued, was when he was asked to join an expedition to the Kermadec Islands. They tried to make this expedition cover all the subjects and he was to cover the botany. One day in the library of the philosophical institute in Christchurch, be bad approached the late Dr. Cockayne, and when he explained that he wanted to gain some knowledge of botany nobody could have been more generous than Dr. Cockayne. Dr. Cockayne gave him a certificate which went before Cabinet, which granted him the necessary leave. “There is only one other thing I want to mention,” Dr. Oliver concluded, “and that is my debt to the Royal Society fo r printing my publications. Had they not done so I would not have been known as a botanist.” Dr. P. Marshall, president of the Wellington Philosophical Society, was in the chair. Mr. A. D. Monro, lecturer in chemistry at Victoria University College, gave a lecture on “New Viewpoints on Chemistry.”