Walter Howchin

Walter Howchin (12 January 1845 – 27 November 1937) was a geologist who lectured in mineralogy and palaeontology at the former Adelaide School of Mines and the University of Adelaide; he won the Clarke Medal in 1907.

Howchin was born in Norwich, England, the child of Mary Ann Ward, née Goose and the Primitive Methodist minister Rev. Richard Howchin, who had attended Elmfield College [1][2] and was subsequently (1870) acquitted of murder in Liverpool. [3]

He was one of eleven children. and attended the Academy, King's Lynn, which he left aged 12 to study for the Methodist ministry. He was ordained towards the end of 1864. His first circuit was Shotley Bridge, Durham, and during the next 16 years he moved between a number of parishes in the Tyne valley. He began to take an interest in geology at an early age, and found much to develop this interest in the abundant local outcrops of coal-bearing and associated rocks of Carboniferous age. Howchin discovered abundant glacial till at Haltwhistle, the study of which led to work that later made him famous. His interest in the flint implements of Northumberland led to the later study of stone implements of the Australian aborigines. In 1876, in conjunction with H. B. Brady, Howchin did some important work on the foraminifera of Carboniferous and Permian age, and became a fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1878.

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