Dorothy Hill

Dorothy Hill
Australian geologist and palaeontologist, Dorothy Hill, with horse, Walter
Born	(1907-09-10)September 10, 1907 Brisbane, Australia
Died
Nationality	Australian
Fields	geologist, palaeontologist
Education	Coorparoo State School, Brisbane Girls Grammar School
Alma mater	University of Queensland, University of Cambridge
Notable awards	W. R. Browne Medal, Clarke Medal, Lyell Medal, C.B.E, A.C.

Dorothy Hill, AC, CBE, FAA, FRS (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 seven children, and grew up in Coorparoo in Brisbane. She attended Coorparoo State School followed by Brisbane Girls Grammar School. She received the Lady Lilley Gold Medal in 1924.

Dorothy was an enthusiastic sportswoman, who pursued athletics at high school, and was an accomplished horsewoman at home. At University, she would participate in hurdles, running, hockey and rowing. She would play on the University of Queensland, Queensland state and Australian universities hockey teams. At Cambridge, she would take a pilot's licence.

Following high school she considered studying medicine and pursuing studies in medical research, but 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. Luckily, 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 H.C. Richards she graduated in 1928 with a First Class Honours degree in Geology and the University's Gold Medal for Outstanding Merit. She was the first woman to win this Gold Medal. 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 a holiday in Mundubbera had unearthed several during a holiday there. She was put forward for a Foundation Travelling Scholarship by Professor Henry Caselli Richards to study at the University of Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum, living in Newnham College, just as the Great Depression was taking effect.

At Cambridge, Hill was a Fellow of Newnham College and the Segwick Museum and was supported from 1931-33 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. After Hill's return to Australia, she continued to study at the University of Queensland and took a Doctor of Science in 1942.

Career

Dorothy Hill remained in England for seven years, publishing several important papers systemetising 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 W.H. Bryan. Her work on corals became the worldwide standard.

From 1937-1942, Hill was the recipient of a Council for Scientific and Industry 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 war, she was leading geological field trips around Moreton Bay, and was studying the first core drills of the Great Barrier Reef. She won a Lyell Fund award in 1940, the first Queenslander and only ninth Australian to do so, for her work on corals.

During World War II Hill enlisted in the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service. She worked 80–90 hours a week on 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.

From 1946-55, Hill served as the Secretary of the Great Barrier Reef Committee. She was instrumental in getting facilities at the Heron Island Research Station constructed. She was appointed a full lecturer to 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 would become 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, they were able to work together on eight sections on coelenterates for the 1956 publication, Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Hill wrote a second volume for the treatise on Archaeocyatha in 1972.

Dorothy Hill, of the University of Queensland (Photo used with the permission of the University of Queensland Fryer Library)

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 time 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. She retired from the University in 1972, and the Dorothy Hill chair was established in her honour in Palaeontology and Stratigraphy. She continued to come into the University to work, 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 library gave its academics, and the poor state of the University of Queensland Library, led to the development of the University of Queensland Geology Department's Library. This was merged with the University's Physical Sciences and Engineering Library in 1997. Eighty boxes of her papers were donated to the University of Queensland Fryer Library after her death. 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.

Hill died in 1997.

Awards

• 1932: Old Students’ Research Fellowship of Newnham College, Cambridge
• 1933: Senior Student of the Exhibition of 1851, Newnham College, Cambridge
• 1934: Daniel Pidgeon Fund, Geological Society of London
• 1940: Lyell Geological Fund award
• 1956: Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (first female)
• 1965: Fellow of the Royal Society (of London) (with Lyell Medal) (first Australian female)
• 1966: Clarke Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales
• 1967: ANZAAS Medal by ANZAAS
• 1967: Bancroft Medal from the Australian Medical Association, Queensland branch
• 1970: President of the Australian Academy of Science (first female)
• 1971: CBE, for services to geology and palaeontology
• 1972: Queenslander of the Year
• 1974: Honorary Doctorate of Laws for work in university administration, The University of Queensland
• 1983: Mueller Medal
• 1981: W.R. Browne Medal
• 1993: AC from the Australian government

Legacy

Professor Hill made incredible contributions to Australian earth science and was a pivotal factor in opening a whole new world of education to women. She mentored many students who would go on to great success in the field of earth sciences. 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. 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 Geological Society of Australia, Queensland Division also gives a Dorothy Hill Medal to individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge of Queensland geology.

Bibliography

• Campbell, K.S.W. and Jell, J.S. 1998, Dorothy Hill 1907-1997, AAS Biographical Memoirs

Awards
Preceded by Mabel Josephine Mackerras	Clarke Medal 1966	Succeeded by S. Smith White