Douglas Frew Waterhouse O.A. C.M.G (1916 - 2000)

Born 3 Jun 1916 in Gordon, New South Wales, Australia

Died 4 Dec 2000 at age 84 in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Biography

Doug Waterhouse O.A. C.M.G is Notable.

I was fairly sickly as a young child, and my mother, she took her complaining second son out in a pram to try and get him to sleep. And all of a sudden, I stopped complaining. She looked up, and I had put out my hand and picked off the wattle branch a weevil. Normally you would expect an insect to be crushed, but even in the tight little hand this armour-plated insect survived, and I went to sleep. Dad’s older brother gave me a killing bottle, a cyanide-killing bottle, and a butterfly net, folding cane butterfly nets, various other equipment. And this I’m sure got me afloat. Ian Mackerras enlisted as a medical pathologist. When he came back to Australia he was asked to set up a series of malaria control units. I volunteered. I had to test materials which might be used for mosquito sprays, and house fly sprays to stop transmission of diseases. I had a large muzzle and cage in the room in which I could sit, and I’d put a thousand or so mosquitoes in and have one thing on one leg, and another one on another arm, and so on. The next stage was to test it out in conditions in Papua New Guinea, and there you could go out in the dusk with a mosquito net, you could wave it around you and collect one or 200 mosquitoes every minute. I was there with two entymological colleagues who had been doing work on malaria rates, and I did the actual experimental work there, although it was confirmed by these other two. And it then was used by the Australian forces, and I think later by some of the American forces for the rest of the Pacific war, and it remains a very effective repellent.

Douglas Frew WATERHOUSE rose to the position of Captain during his war service and was a Doctor then Professor of Entomology and was knighted with an Order of Australia and CMG. His full accolades are listed on the Web and in Canberra where he was the Head of Entomology at the C.S.I.R.O. in Canberra.

Dr Douglas Frew Waterhouse CMG AO was an Australian entomologist born in June 1916 at Gordon in New south Wales, Australia. His parents were Eben Gowrie Waterhouse and his wife Janet Frew Waterhouse (née Kellie).

Douglas Frew Waterhouse married Allison Dawn Calthorpe in March 1944 in the Australian Capital Territory.

Dr Douglas Frew Waterhouse CMG AO passed away in December 2000 in the Australian Capital Territory. He was survived by his wife Dawn, one daughter, three sons, and their families.

Sources

WALLER FAMILY published by Margaret Mason and Beryl Killey, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia, from research at the Sussex Historical Society and personal interviews. October 1990.

• New South Wales Births, Deaths & Marriages: BIRTH: WATERHOUSE, DOUGLAS F. - registration no. 18721/1916 - father: EBEN G. - mother: JANET F. - district: CHATSWOOD. first accessed online from the NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages search on the 17th of October, 2022 at: https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search/births?

• Australian Capital Territory Births, Deaths & Marriages: MARRIAGE: registration no. 80055023 - groom: WATERHOUSE, DOUGLAS FREW - bride: WATERHOUSE/CALTHORPE, ALLISON DAWN - date of marriage: 4/3/1944. first accessed online from the Access Canberra Historic Marriage Index on the 17th of October, 2022 at: https://www.accesscanberra.act.gov.au/s/article/marriage-registration-tab-historic-marriage-index

• Family Notices from The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) of Monday 7 June 1943, Page 2. first accessed on TROVE on the 19th of October, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2636084?searchTerm=%22Douglas%20waterhouse%22

• Research officer in Army married in Canberra from The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1931 - 1954) of Sunday 5 March 1944, Page 22. first accessed on TROVE on the 19th of October, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247748930?

• Waterhouse—Calthorpe from The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) of Wednesday 8 March 1944, Page 4. first accessed on TROVE on the 17th of October, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2672390?

• DR. WATERHOUSE APPOINTED TO C.S.I.R.O. POST from The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) of Saturday 13 June 1953, Page 3. first accessed on TROVE on the 19th of October, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2884115?

• New Chief For C.S.I.R.O. Insect Division from The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) of Wednesday 23 March 1960, Page 2. first accessed on TROVE on the 19th of October, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/105906566?

• Leading Australian entomologist dies dated: Thursday, 7 December 2000. via: ABC Science Online. retrieved 17th of October, 2022 at: https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2000/12/07/220690.htm?site=science/tricks&topic=tech

• Doug Waterhouse from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. first accessed online on the 17th of October, 2022 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Waterhouse

• Malcolm Robertson, Waterhouse, Douglas Frew (Doug) (1916–2000), Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/waterhouse-douglas-frew-doug-16377/text28344, accessed 17 October 2022.

• NAA: B884, N444523 WATERHOUSE DOUGLAS FREW : Service Number - N444523 (Attestation Papers) from the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF AUSTRALIA website. first accessed online on the 18th of October, 2022

• Douglas Frew Waterhouse 1916-2000 Written by Maxwell F.C. Day, Maxwell J. Whitten and Don Sands. © 2022 Australian Academy of Science

Further Reading

• DOUGLAS FREW WATERHOUSE 'A bug in the hand' NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

• Dawn Waterhouse, wife of Aerogard inventor Doug, speaks at Canberra and District History talk and also via Canberra Times

• Teachers' notes - Dr Douglas Waterhouse (1916-2000), entomologist © 2022 Australian Academy of Science

• Aerogard and The Queen's visit to Australia in 1963 from Dave O'Neil December 2021 on the NEARLY MEDIA website

• Innovation fit for the Queen – Aerogard born in Canberra and WW II from the Ginninderra News website dated: August 17, 2018.

• Douglas Frew Waterhouse, C.M.G. 3 June 1916 – 1 December 2000 by Maxwell F.C. Day, Maxwell J. Whitten and Don P.A. Sands. Published in the: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of 01 December 2002. (Issue: 48 - Pages: 459 - 481) at: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.2002.0027 (Copyright © 2022 The Royal Society)