Memories of the Bureau, 1946 to 1962
Foreword
Terminology
Prologue
Preface
Chapter 1: The Warren Years, 1946 to 1950
Chapter 2: International Meteorology
Chapter 3: The Timcke Years, 1950 to 1955
Chapter 4: A Year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chapter 5: The Dwyer Years, 1955 to 1962
Chapter 6: A Springboard for the Future
My Springboard
Proposal for More Staff
Efforts to Improve Scientific Status of the Bureau
Gibbs-Priestley-White Prospectus
Successes and Struggles with Ministers and Permanent Heads
Submission to Royal Commission on Government Administration
The Committee of Inquiry
Achievements 1962 to 1978
Appendix 1: References
Appendix 2: Reports, Papers, Manuscripts
Appendix 3: Milestones
Appendix 4: Acknowledgements
Appendix 5: Summary by H. N. Warren of the Operation of the Meteorological Section of Allied Air Headquarters, Brisbane, 1942–45
Endnotes
Index
Search
Help
Contact us
Efforts to Improve Scientific Status of the Bureau (continued)
In the meantime Dick Kingsland and I had discussions with Collings of the PSB and Craik of Treasury and a fourth draft of the new Cabinet submission was prepared and circulated in October 1967. During these developments Fred White, Bill Priestley and I prepared a prospectus for meteorological research in Australia which included discussions of the roles of the Bureau, the CSIRO and the universities. This was completed in June 1967 and circulated to Dick Kingsland, the PSB and the newly created Department of Education and Science with Malcolm Fraser (later to become Prime Minister) as Minister and Sir Hugh Ennor as secretary.Thus three years after Cabinet had asked for a separate Cabinet submission the matter was still under discussion by the Bureau, Department of the Interior, PSB, Treasury, CSIRO and the Department of Education and Science. Fred White, Bill Priestley, Dick Kingsland and Doug Anthony were strongly in favour of my original proposal. The PSB and Ennor were obstructive, Ennor being particularly negative, casting doubt on the Bureau's growth, its international commitments and the need for stronger scientific staff.
A seventh draft of the Cabinet submission was circulated 29 March 1968 and an eighth to the Minister for the Interior on 17 June 1968, following three years of frustrating discussion.
The decision finally arrived at in Cabinet was a compromise proposal that the Bureau and the CSIRO should form a joint venture called the Commonwealth Meteorology Research Centre (CMRC). Bill Priestley and I had proposed that the Centre bear the name of H. C. Russell, the first Australian-born colonial meteorologist, but this was rejected. My objective of having research scientists on the Bureau staff was thwarted by the creation of CMRC and was not achieved until Ennor had retired and John Farrands became Permanent Head of the Department of Science.
John Gardner's Metarch Papers No 11 (1997) gives some information on these events but a detailed examination of relevant files would be needed to reveal the full story.
Organisations in Australian Science at Work - Commonwealth Meteorology Research Centre
People in Bright Sparcs - Ennor, Arnold Hughes; Farrands, John Laws; Kingsland, Richard; Priestley, Charles Henry Brian (Bill); Russell, Henry Chamberlain; White, Frederick William George
 |
Bureau of Meteorology |  |
© Online Edition Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre and Bureau of Meteorology 2001
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/1148.html