Mary E. White

Mary Elizabeth White AM (5 January 1926 – 5 August 2018) was an Australian paleobotanist and author, notable for collecting numerous plant fossils for the Australian Museum, describing a number of new plant fossil species, and authoring several well received, large format science books for the general readership including "The Greening of Gondwana" (1986) and successors.^[1]

Biography[]

Early years and scientific career[]

White was born in South Africa, grew up in southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and received a master's degree in paleobotany from the University of Cape Town.^[2] She married Bill White, a geologist; the couple came to Australia in 1955.^[1] White worked as a consultant for the Bureau of Mineral Resources in Canberra until the 1980s; she also consulted on a part-time basis for mining companies. In 1975, she was hired as a research associate for the Australian Museum; she established a collection of 12,000 specimens of plant fossils for the museum.^[2] Among her published output were descriptions of several new species and genera including Agathis jurassica, Rissikia talbragarensis and Pentoxylon australica from the Late Jurassic Talbragar Fish Beds, Squamella, a new genus of Glossopterid fructification from the Late Permian, and Cylomeia, a new genus for an Early Triassic lycopod.^[3][4][5]

She began writing large format, well illustrated science books after her husband died in 1981, highlights including "The Greening of Gondwana" (1986); "The Nature of Hidden Worlds" (1990), "Time in Our Hands" (1991), and "After the Greening: The Browning of Australia" (1994), the last of which received one of the 1994 Eureka Prizes.

In 2003, White purchased a large forested property, Falls Forest Retreat, approximately halfway between Taree and Port Macquarie in New South Wales; she established a covenant to protect the land and preserve its biodiversity.^[2] In 2013 she sold the property but with the covenant it can never be disturbed.

Illness and death[]

In her later years White suffered from vascular dementia and a stroke and went to live with her daughter and her daughter's husband in Bundanoon, New South Wales between 2014 and 2016. In 2016, following another stroke she moved to a nearby aged-care centre. On 5 August 2018, White was found dead in her room at the Warrigal aged care complex, apparently as a result of drugs administered without authorization by her daughter, Barbara Eckersley. Eckersley was charged with her mother's murder; at her bail hearing, her barrister maintained that his client had the "belief that the aged-care centre weren't able to deal with Dr White's agitation and pain".^[6][7][8] After more than two years' delay, Eckersley was eventually found guilty, not of murder but of the lesser charge of manslaughter and was spared jail time, instead being sentenced to a two year community corrections order on account of what the judge termed her "low moral culpability" due to a "diagnosis of severe depression".^[9]

Awards and honours[]

White received honorary doctorates from four Australian universities,^[1] plus the Riversleigh medal in 1999 for "excellence in promoting understanding of Australian prehistory". In 2010, she received a Lifetime of Conservation award from the Australian Geographic Society.^[2] She was awarded the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science's Mueller Medal in 2001. In 2009, she was made a Member the Order of Australia (AM) for "service to botany as a researcher and through the promotion of increased understanding and awareness of the natural world".^[10][11]

Publications[]

Books[]

• Australia's Prehistoric Plants & Their Environment (Methuen, 1985)
• The Greening of Gondwana – The 400 Million Year Story of Australia's Plants (Reed Books, 1986)
• The Nature of Hidden Worlds – Animals and Plants in Prehistoric Australia and New Zealand (Reed Books, 1990)
• Muttaburrasaurus: An Australian Dinosaur in Its Time and Space (Houghton Mifflin, 1990) – with Robyn Muche (Illustrator)
• Amphibians of the Triassic : Tadpole Hunting 220 Million Years Ago (Houghton Mifflin, 1990) – with Robyn Muche (Illustrator)
• Time in Our Hands – Semi-precious Gemstones: Keys to the Geological Past (Reed Books, 1991)
• After the Greening: The Browning of Australia (Houghton Mifflin, 1994), received a Eureka Prize
• Listen... Our Land is Crying (Kangaroo Press, 1997)
• Reading the Rocks (Kangaroo Press, 1999)
• Running Down: Water in a Changing Land (Kangaroo Press, 2000), which was shortlisted for a Eureka Prize^[12]
• Earth Alive! From Microbes to a Living Planet (Rosenberg Publishing, 2003)^[10]

Scientific papers[]

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References[]