William Rowan Browne

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William Rowan Browne FAA (11 December 1884 – 1 September 1975) was an Australian geologist and the author of The Geology of the Commonwealth of Australia.

He was born in Lislea, County Londonderry, Ireland, to two school teachers. He studied at Coleraine Academical Institution and entered Trinity College, Dublin in 1903, but had to withdraw because of tuberculosis. On doctors’ advice he sailed to Australia in 1904. Browne taught for a while before joining the University of Sydney, where he earned a Doctor of Science degree with a university medal in 1922 for his work in igneous and metamorphic petrology. In 1923 he was promoted to assistant professor.

Browne completed The Geology of the Commonwealth of Australia, a project begun by Professor Edgeworth David. David told Browne about it in March 1934; David died later that year. The New South Wales government asked Browne to publish the book. David’s manuscript was only rough notes and some chapters were almost empty. The book was finally printed in 1950.

The Sydney Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board asked Browne to study a site for a storage reservoir on the Warragamba River. He found a better site and served as its geological adviser until the Warragamba Dam was completed in 1960.

Browne married Olga Marian Pauss in 1911 (she died in 1948). They had two daughters. In 1950 he married Dr Ida Alison Brown, a fellow geologist who had to resign her position as a senior lecturer when she married. Browne died in 1975 after nursing his wife through a five-year illness; she died a few months later.

He received several honors: the Clarke Medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1942 (he had been president in 1932–33); he helped found the Geographical Society of New South Wales in 1927 and served as its president in 1929–30 and 1948–49; he founded the Geological Society of Australia in 1952 and was its president in 1955–56. The Geological Society of Australia gives the W. R. Browne Medal as its highest honour. In 1959 he received the Mueller Medal from the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science.