Person

Bonython, Charles Warren (1916 - 2012)

AO

Born
11 September 1916
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Died
2 April 2012
adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Occupation
Conservationist and Chemical engineer

Summary

Warren Bonython, a graduate in chemical engineering, worked for ICI Australia for over 25 years where he was mainly involved in research and management of the production of salt by solar evaporation. In this he became a world expert. For 20 years he was manager of the salt fields at Dry Creek in Adelaide. After taking early retirement in 1966 Bonython devoted his time to conservation and bushwalking. He was particularly interested in the arid landscapes of South Australia. Among his notable treks on foot were those to the Flinders ranges (1967 - 1968), the Simpson Desert 1973, and Lake Eyre (1982); some of these resulted in the publication of well-received books. Among the conservation organisations in which Bonython held executive positions were, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Conservation Council of South Australia, and the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia. For 20 years he was President of the Scientific Expedition Group, an organisation that encourages understanding and appreciation of the natural world. Bonython also contributed to Government organisations as varied as the Uranium Advisory Council and the South Australian Museum. His involvement in scientific societies included terms as President of the Royal Society of South Australia and the South Australian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia.

Skip to

Details

Chronology

1940 - 1966
Career position - Chemical engineer, Imperial Chemical Industry of Australia and New Zealand Limited
1951 - 2001
Career position - Member of Council, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch
1952 - 1984
Career position - Member of the Board, South Australian Museum
1959 - 1961
Career position - President, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch
1961 - 1976
Career position - South Australian Chairman, Water Research Foundation of Australia
1965 - 1973
Career position - Member of the Executive, Australian Conservation Foundation
1966
Life event - Retired
1968 - 1979
Career position - Director, Dampier Salt Ltd
1971 - 1975
Career position - President, Conservation Council of South Australia
1971 - 1976
Career position - President, National Trust of South Australia
1972 - 1982
Career position - Member of Council, University of Adelaide
1977 - 1991
Career position - Chairman, Evaluation Panel for Natural Areas in South Australia, Australian Heritage Commission
1978 - ?
Career position - Trustee, World Wide Fund for Nature Australia
1978 - 1983
Career position - Member, Uranium Advisory Council
26 January 1980
Award - Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of service to conservation
1981
Career Position - President, Royal Society of South Australia
1981 - 1984
Career position - Chairman, Reserves Advisory Committee to Minister of Environment and Planning South Australia
1984
Award - John Lewis Gold Medal, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch
1984 - 2004
Career position - Inaugural President, Scientific Expedition Group
1985 - 1989
Career position - President, Council of the National Parks Foundation of South Australia
1990
Award - Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year
2001 - 2012
Award - Fellow, Royal Geographical Society of South Australia
2004 - 2012
Award - President Emeritus, Scientific Expedition Group

Related Corporate Bodies

Published resources

Books

  • Bonython, C. Warren, Walking the Flinders Ranges (Adelaide: Rigby, 1971), 231 pp. Details
  • Bonython, C. Warren, Walking the Simpson Desert (Adelaide: Rigby, 1980), 160 pp. Details

Edited Books

  • Bonython, C. Warren; and Fraser, A. Stewart eds, The great filling of Lake Eyre in 1974 (Adelaide: Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch, 1989), 120 pp. Details

Journal Articles

  • Oats, Graeme, 'Walking with Warren', SEGments: journal of the Scientific Expedition Group, 28 (1) (2012), 3-6. Details
  • Ward, Brian J., 'Obituary: Charles Warren Bonython, AO, KGSJ, BSc, FRACI, FRGS, FRGSA 11 September 1916 - 2 April 2012', South Australian Geographical Journal, 112 (2013), 81-5. Details
  • Willing, Richard, 'Editorial [obituary for C. Warren Bonython]', SEGments: journal of the Scientific Expedition Group, 28 (1) (2012), 1-2. Details

Resources

See also

  • Who's who in Australia 2012 (Melbourne: Crown Content Pty Ltd, 2012), 2430 pp. Details

Rosanne Walker and Helen Cohn

Created: 28 May 1999, Last modified: 4 October 2022

EOAS ID: biogs/P003067b.htm

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

Published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2024 February (Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#kooyang
For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P003067b.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260