Albert Cherbury David Rivett, 1885-1961

Abstract

The history of the development of experimental research in Australia over the past fifty years is intimately interwoven with David Rivett’s activities. The bright thread of his mind tightly laces and strengthens the whole of its fabric, appearing only occasionally on the surface, sometimes to illuminate a shadow, sometimes to enliven an existing pattern, sometimes to introduce an entirely new motif. Armed with an exceptional intellect and a never failing appreciation of scientific spirit, he worked continually to establish an environment in which free enterprise of the mind would flourish. In this and other tasks, his genes and early training guided him with inflexible resolution. He died on 1 April 1961, after a long illness imposed by a series of midbrain lesions which sapped his intellectual vitality and gradually robbed him of his exceptional memory during the last few years of his life. In a national acknowledgement of esteem, the Prime Minister of Australia,1 expressed a widespread sentiment in the words: ‘Sir David Rivett was one of the great Australians of our time. He combined an absolutely first class mind and great scientific attainments with a generous outlook and a quiet but pervading enthusiasm. His death is a national and personal loss.’