Alfred William Howitt explorer, geologist and anthropologist, was born at Nottingham, England, on 17 April 1830. His parents, William Howitt (1792-1879) and Mary Howitt (1799-1888), were prolific authors. Alfred William Howitt was educated in England, Heidelberg, Germany, and University College, London. He arrived in Victoria, Australia, with his father and brother on 13 September 1852 in pursuit of gold.
Howitt farmed land near Melbourne belonging to his uncle, Dr Godfrey Howitt, led an expedition seeking pastoral land near Lake Eyre, South Australia, and managed a station near Hamilton, Vic.
He led a government party to prospect for gold in Gippsland. He developed an extraordinary knowledge of eucalypts and led an expedition up the Mitchell river and its tributaries, where gold was discovered on the Crooked, Dargo, and Wentworth rivers.
Howitt organised two expeditions in search of Burke and Wills, returning with the survivor, King. He lived for some time with the Dieri tribe, though he stated that "an idle incorrigibly treacherous, lying race--I can well understand the feeling of bitter enmity which always subsists between the outside settlers and the native tribes". He returned to Melbourne with the remains of the explorers in December 1862.
In 1863 Howitt was appointed police magistrate and warden of the goldfields in Gippsland, and held that position for more than 25 years. In 1873, he began studies in petrography. Hi first geographical paper, "Notes on the Geology of part of the Mitchell River Division of the Gippsland Mining District", appeared in the progress report of the 1874 geological survey of Victoria.
His interest in the Aboriginal tribes led to his study of the Kurnai in Gippsland. He gained their confidence and was treated as though he were an initiated member of the tribe. He wrote Kamilaroi and Kurnai (1880) with Rev. Lorimer Fison.
In 1889 Howitt was appointed Secretary for Mines in Melbourne. A series of papers by Howitt and Fison on the Australian tribes appeared in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland from1883 to1907. Howitt's treatise on "The Eucalypti of Gippsland" appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria in 1889.
In 1896 Howitt was appointed audit commissioner and a member of the public service board. He continued his scientific work and retired from the public service in 1901. He settled at Metung in Gippsland and was made chairman of a royal commission on the coalfields of Victoria, and spent much time as a member of the interstate commission considering proposed sites for the future Commonwealth capital.
He was awarded the Mueller medal by the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in 1903, and in 1904, having completed his book The Native Tribes of South-east Australia. He was made president of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in 1907.
Towards the end of that year he had a severe illness and died at Bairnsdale on 7 March 1908. He married Maria, daughter of Mr Justice Boothby of Adelaide. He was survived by two sons and three daughters. From Mary Howitt, an Autobiography; Wm Howitt, History of Discovery in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand; Sir W. Baldwin Spencer, The Victorian Naturalist, April 1908; Sir J. G. Frazer, Folk Lore, 1909, pp. 144-80; Mary E. B. Howitt, The Victorian Historical Magazine, September 1913, pp. 16-24."
