Australian geologist and palaeontologist (1907–1997)
Dorothy Hill, (10 September 1907 – 23 April 1997) was an Australian geologist and palaeontologist, the first female professor at an Australian university, and the first female president of the Australian Academy of Science.
Education.
Dorothy Hill was born in Taringa, the third of 7 children, and grew up in Coorparoo in Brisbane. She attended Coorparoo State School, and then won a scholarship to attend Brisbane Girls Grammar School. She received the Lady Lilley Gold Medal, and the Phyllis Hobbs Memorial Prize in English and History, in 1924.
Hill was an enthusiastic sportswoman, who pursued athletics and netball at high school, and was an accomplished horsewoman at home. At the University of Queensland, she participated in hurdles, running, hockey and rowing. She played on the University of Queensland, Queensland state and Australian universities hockey teams. While at Cambridge University, she took a pilot's licence.
Following high school, she considered studying medicine and pursuing studies in medical research; however, at the time, the University of Queensland did not offer a medical degree, and the Hill family could not afford to send Dorothy to Sydney. Fortunately, she won one of twenty entrance scholarships to the University of Queensland in 1924 (after receiving the highest pass in the Senior Public Matriculation Exam), where she decided to study science, in particular chemistry. She chose to study geology as an elective, and under the guidance of Professor Henry Caselli Richards she graduated in 1928 with a First Class Honours degree in Geology and the university's Gold Medal for Outstanding Merit. Hill continued to work as a UQ Fellow through 1929–30 on scholarship while she was studying her Master of Science, conducting research in the Brisbane Valley on the stratigraphy of shales in Esk and sediments in the Ipswich basin. She began to collect fossils after she was introduced to them in the local limestone of a farm, where she was holidaying in Mundubbera. She was put forward for a UQ Foundation Travelling Scholarship by Professor Richards to study at the University of Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum, in residence at Newnham College, just as the Great Depression was taking effect.
At Cambridge, Hill was a Fellow of Newnham College and the Sedgwick Museum and was supported from 1931 to 1933 on an Old Students Research Fellowship while she worked on her PhD under supervisor, Gertrude Elles. Australian universities did not begin awarding PhD's until 1948 (with the first at UQ being awarded in 1950). Hill continued to explore the theory that Australia had once been covered from north to south by an inland sea, as evidenced by the fossil corals she found in Mundubbera. She received a further scholarship, Senior Student of the Exhibition of 1851 for two years and the Daniel Pidgeon Fund award from the Geological Society of London which enabled her to remain in England until 1936. A number of Australian students were at Newnham College with Hill in this era, including Elizabeth "Betty" Ripper, who was also studying palaeontology, and Germaine Joplin. She worked with Drs William Dickson Lang and Stanley Smith on Palaeozoic coral taxonomy, at the Natural History Museum in London. After Hill's return to Australia, she continued to study at the University of Queensland and took a Doctor of Science in 1942.
Early career.
Hill remained in England for seven years, publishing several important papers systematising the terminology for describing Rugose corals, and describing their structure and morphology. When Hill returned to Australia she took on the huge task of dating the limestone coral faunas of Australia, using them to outline wide-ranging stratigraphy, and producing papers on the coral faunas of all states except South Australia, some of these with Dr Walter Heywood Bryan. Her work on corals became the worldwide standard.
From 1937 to 1942, Hill was the recipient of a Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) grant and worked as a research fellow at the University of Queensland. In 1939, Hill was involved with the Geological Survey of Queensland, consulted for the Shell Corporation and was secretary of the Royal Society of Queensland. Before the outbreak of World War II, she was leading geological field trips around Moreton Bay, and was studying the first core drills of the Great Barrier Reef with the Great Barrier Reef Committee. She won a Lyell Fund award in 1940, the first Queenslander and only the ninth Australian to do so, for her work on corals.
World War II.
During World War II, Hill enlisted in the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service, serving in the Naval Office in Brisbane, a division of HMAS Moreton. She worked 80–90 hours a week in between her coral research and in the cipher and coding of shipping orders in General Douglas MacArthur's division. She rose to the office of 2nd operations officer in the division, and also served on the demobilisation planning committee for women's services following the war.
Later career.
From 1946 to 1955, Hill served as the third secretary of the Great Barrier Reef Committee. She was instrumental in getting facilities at the Heron Island Research Station constructed. Her efforts included raising money, shipping in materials, and even building items for the facilities such as water tanks. Through campaigning, she was able to receive grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Australian Research Grants Committee. The money was used to improve the laboratory facilities and provide accommodation for visitors. She appointed Dr. W.G.H. Maxwell to a lecturing position in the department of geology, and he made several contributions to further benefit the Reef. Hill was appointed a full lecturer at UQ in 1946. In 1952, she was appointed senior lecturer before becoming chief lecturer in 1956, reader in geology in 1958, and research professor in 1959. She became a full professor in 1960.
During 1952, Professor John W. Wells of Cornell University visited the University of Queensland as a Fulbright Scholar. He was also a world authority on coelenterates. As a result of their meeting, Hill and Wells were able to work together on eight sections on coelenterates for the 1956 publication, "Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology", which continues to be updated today. Hill wrote a second volume for the treatise on Archaeocyatha in 1972.
In 1947, Hill was president of the Royal Society of Queensland. In 1952, she was chairman of the Geological Society of Australia, Queensland Division. In 1956 Hill became the first female fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. From 1958 to 1964, she was editor of the Journal of the Geological Society of Australia. In 1964, Hill was awarded the Lyell Medal for scientific research and became the first Australian woman to be a Fellow of the Royal Society (of London). In 1968, she formed the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists. Hill served on the Australian Academy of Science committees, becoming vice-president in 1969 and the first female president in 1970, following the death of David Forbes Martyn. At the end of her term of office she did not seek re-election. She also made statements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, to promote female enrolments in science, discouraged by the slow growth in the area, and push toward a campaign aimed at parents.
In 1971, Hill became president of the Professorial Board of the University of Queensland, the first woman to be so recognised. In her interview with John Cole for his history of the university in 1980, she indicated-
"It seemed to me that having been considered incapable of administration when the Head of the Department (became available), knowing I would have made a success of it...here's a chance anyhow to prove that women can administer and research people can administer and in two capacities I could prove (myself)...I couldn't really see why a woman couldn't run a university."
She retired from the university in late 1972 to let younger academics have their turn in administration and to return to research, and the Dorothy Hill chair was established in her honour in Palaeontology and Stratigraphy. She continued to come into the university to pursue research, long after her official retirement, until about 1987. She was recognised with an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the university in 1974, in acknowledgement of her time on the Professorial Board.
Hill published over 100 research publications in Australian and international journals and books. In 1978, Hill completed the comprehensive "Bibliography and Index of Australian Paleozoic Coral."
Hill had strong views on the value of a library to a university. Her experience of the profound benefit the University of Cambridge libraries gave its academics, and the poor state of the University of Queensland Library up until 1949, led to the development of the University of Queensland Geology Department's Library. The Geology Library was merged with the university's Physical Sciences and Engineering Library in 1997, which now bears her name. Eighty boxes of her papers were donated to the University of Queensland Fryer Library after her death. An online exhibition of her life and access to selected professional papers is accessible from the University of Queensland Library. Her considerable geological collection, of thousands of thin rock sections on glass slides, is housed in the University of Queensland's Geology Museum and in museums around the world. Her name was given to the "Acanthastrea hillae"", Australomya hillae, Filiconcha hillae", "Reticulofenestra hillae", "Striatopora? hillae", "Yacutiopora hillae" and "Mesoplica? hillae".
Hill died in 1997.
Legacy.
Hill made significant contributions to Australian earth science and was a pivotal role model in opening a whole new world of education to women. She mentored many students who went on to great success in the field of earth sciences, including Ken Campbell and Graham Maxwell. Malcolm Thomis in his history of the University of Queensland, described Hill as the "most outstanding graduate in the first 75 years of the University". The Great Court at the University of Queensland features a stone grotesque carved in her likeness by Rhyl Hinwood in 1982. There is also a bust of Hill, sculpted by Rhyl Hinwood at Brisbane Girls Grammar School. Coorparoo State School named a portion of their school for Hill in 2015.
In 1997 the University of Queensland's Physical Sciences and Engineering Library was named the Dorothy Hill Physical Sciences and Engineering Library in her honour.
In 2014, the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Queensland named their research vessel, RV D Hill, to honour her legacy to fossil coral research.
Since 2002, the Australian Academy of Science has awarded the Dorothy Hill Award for female researchers in earth sciences. The Queensland Division of the Geological Society of Australia also awards a Dorothy Hill Medal to individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge of Queensland geology.
In 2016 Dr Gilbert Price and colleagues at the University of Queensland School of Earth Sciences located Hill's rock hammer and created a 3D model of it for an exhibition to celebrate her life. Gilbert Price included the 3D image in an article about Hill and her hammer.
The electoral district of Hill created in the 2017 Queensland state electoral redistribution was named after her, in recognition of her work for the Great Barrier Reef.
The University of Queensland's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences hosted the biannual Dorothy Hill Women in Earth Sciences Symposium in 2017, 2019 and will again 2021.
A street in the village designed for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, has also been named in her honour.
An astronomical observatory is being named for Hill at the Brisbane Girls Grammar School's Marrapatta Open Education Campus.
Dorothy Hill was the subject of a Google Doodle on 10 September 2018, the 111th anniversary of her birth.
References.
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