ARTHUR MONTAGU GWYNN:ARTHUR MONTAGU Gwynn, scientist, doctor, explorer and editor who died earlier this year in Sydney at the age of 99, was one of the last of a generation of Ireland's foremost academic families.
Born in Dublin in 1908, he was the second son of Edward Gwynn and Olive (née Ponsonby). His earliest memory was the day the first World War began. His family were in Switzerland where his father was recovering from tuberculosis and he saw the Swiss men, all armed, coming down from the mountains to defend their country.
The family returned to Dublin where he had a happy childhood which, however, included memories of being on a tram with his mother in 1916 with bullets whizzing by and of his uncle Stephen Gwynn's house being blown up by the IRA.
Gwynn's love of nature, in particular birds, was obvious from a very early age. He went to school at Baymount in Sutton and St Columba's College in Rathfarnham, Dublin, before studying Science in Trinity College, Dublin, where his father was provost. There were so many Gwynns in Trinity at the time that it was sometimes jokingly referred to as "Gwynnity College".
He got a 1st class degree in zoology, botany and geology and went to Cambridge University to do a two-year postgraduate course in tropical agriculture.
He had a great interest in Soviet Russia and quite left-wing views but resisted being drawn into the circle of Cambridge communists, which included the subsequently notorious British traitors Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt.
From Cambridge, Gwynn went to Trinidad where he studied a disease of the Pawpaw tree. He then joined the colonial office as a tropical entomologist and spent the next four years in Nigeria, Chad and Uganda.
How locusts swarm was one of his subjects. He wrote home saying that the Africans needed to rule the country, an amazing suggestion at the time.
With war threatening Europe, Gwynn didn't want to be left in Africa so he enrolled to study medicine in Aberdeen, travelling home by boat via the Nile. He loved the mountains of Scotland and spent his weekends climbing.
He qualified in 1942 and joined the British army. Most of his war service was in Italy. He was at Monte Cassino and received a George Cross for bravery. With characteristic modesty, he dismissed his decorations as being due to the last man standing. The end of the war found him on the Italian-Slovenian border where he spent a happy month climbing the mountains while awaiting reassignment.
He was demobilised in 1946 and worked in hospitals in Britain before heading to New Zealand to climb.
He signed on as doctor on a ship bound for Australia as "it was heading in the right direction". While visiting a friend in Melbourne, he found a medical journal in a wastepaper basket and saw an ad for a doctor for the Australian Antarctic Division. This changed the course of his life completely.
He spent a year on Macquarie Island, studying penguins and seals. His medical skills were not much needed but he did have the job of stitching himself up after being bitten by an elephant seal.
1953 saw him back on Heard Island but this time he travelled farther on, to the Antarctic mainland, to set up the first Australian base there.
A stamp, showing Arthur and two others raising the Australian flag, was issued by the Australian Post Office. His mother back in Ireland proudly carried it everywhere in her handbag and, to a generation of nieces and nephews, he was the man on the stamp.
In 1956 he married Pat Howard, a scientist with the Antarctic Division. They had many interests in common even if Pat could not stand birds.
Their married life started on Thursday Island in the far north of Australia before moving to Sydney where they raised their family. Gwynn spent the next 21 years with the Australian Medical Journal as sub-editor and editor. The job suited him well as doctor, scientist and academic.
At 70 he embarked on a new career as an administrator with the Murray Health Region based in Albury, New South Wales. He finally retired in 1985 and returned to Sydney where he spent an active retirement, walking, reading and bird-watching. He visited Ireland three times, the last visit being in 2002.
Arthur Gwynn left an unusual legacy, quite apart from his children. An Ichneumon collection and a penguin's egg of his are in the Natural History Museum in Dublin. There is a Mt Gwynn and Gwynn Bay in the Antarctic. A locust and lichen in Uganda have Gwynn in their scientific name.
A quiet, self-effacing exterior hid a clever and energetic man. He led a long and busy life, never wasting an opportunity. His wife died in 1999 and he is survived by his children, Josephine, Charles and Nicola, as well as grandchildren Sam and Lucy.
Arthur Montagu Gwynn: born August 5th, 1908; died January 31st, 2008