W. D. (Bill) Williams (1936-2002)
 

Bill Williams: Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Freshwater Ecologist. Born Liverpool U.K. 21 August 1936. Died Brisbane January 26 2002, aged 65.

Emeritus Professor Bill Williams was one of Australia’s leading exponents of limnology, the study of the biology and geochemistry of inland waters. His particular interest was the ecology of saline lakes; habitats which contain fewer species than other aquatic systems but which are prominent among the damaged ecosystems of this country.

Bill grew up in wartime Britain and graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of Liverpool in 1961. He worked with Professor HBN Hynes who enthused Bill through his pioneering work on the ecology of rivers and their largely unknown invertebrate fauna. Bill studied the isopod, Asellus, and refined an intensity of working that remained in reputation throughout his life with him. For example, as a research student he found it more effective to work at night and sleep during the day and this was his pattern throughout much of the seminal study which formed his doctoral work.

Bill’s first teaching position was at Monash University where he arrived with his wife Anne in 1961. He joined the Department of Zoology and Comparative Physiology which had been just established by Professor A.J. (Jock) Marshall, a lively columnist for this newspaper at the time. Together with Tim Ealey, and later Ian Bayly, he was charged with the teaching of ecology to students for whom the word was completely new.  His first lectures in ecology consisted of paraphrased portions of the first edition of Odum’s Ecology. I remember a lecture in which he discussed Liebig’s Law of the Minimum. He clearly regarded this formulation as a statement of futile common sense and a northern hemisphere oddity so finished off the remainder of the hour with a more enthusiastic discussion of his beloved amphipods. Bill realised early on that the saline lakes in western Victoria’s Corangamite region were a significant research and teaching tool and generations of students accompanied Bill to his beloved, but threatened, lakes. On one of these trips he diverged to show us a block of land in the outer suburbs which featured a rectangular concrete slab: Bill and Anne were building a house. This was the beginning of a life dedicated to pride in most things Australian and the raising of two sons, Simon and Richard.

Soon after Williams was appointed to Monash he was joined by a New Zealander, Ian Bayly. Williams and Bayly became a formidable pair. They wrote together, travelled all over the continent in pioneering studies, and were instrumental in establishing the Australian Society for Limnology, which now caters for over 600 members. During this time he wrote Australian Freshwater Life, and he and Bayly later completed Inland Waters and their Ecology in 1973.

As an academic Bill was always interesting. While at Monash he once broached the subject of the University buying a helicopter to decrease travelling time to his field sites. Cost was not the prime variable of concern as the aircraft was to be “just another ecological tool”. Whistling near his office when he was writing was a chilling experience but his enthusiasm and sheer fun in dragging nets and dozens of undergraduates through waste deep water was reflected in the three generations of freshwater ecologists in universities and government who now continue his interests. As well as the formalities of teaching and research Bill also had a strong sense of community responsibility. Public issues were never shirked, particularly in the mire of the Bolte era in Victoria, and his loss of issues like the flooding of Lake Pedder remained with him. He was unashamedly passionate about the protection of the Australian environment.

Following the retirement of H.G. Andrewartha from the Chair in Zoology at the University of Adelaide Bill assumed the position in January 1975. He established a group of freshwater biologists, developed further links among the growth of freshwater ecologists and invertebrate taxonomists, and continued his extraordinary output of primary papers, reviews, books and commentary. His interests during this time extended into water resource management, reflected in his edited work An Ecological Basis for Water Resource Management which he published in 1986. He also became more concerned with international matters with work in North America, USA and Asia. He ventured to Uzbekistan and developed an interest in the sad fate of the post-Soviet Aral Sea. University administration was not Bill’s greatest love in life. He had a passion for influencing students, particularly postgraduates and younger academics, but his ability to see whole pictures of university activity was frustrated by the daily concerns of running a department and its budgetary complexities. He became increasingly concerned about the alienation of, and the culture wars within, Australian universities and, typically, two days after I followed him into the Chair of Zoology, asked me what I was going to do about it.

Bill retired from the University of Adelaide in 1994 and became a Visiting Research Fellow and Professor emeritus of the newly formed Department of Environmental Biology. The liberation of time permitted his interests to extend to National Wetlands Research and Development Programs and the Chairing of the Fisheries Research Advisory Board of South Australia. He also became a most enthusiastic grandparent and watched Anne begin a new career as a lawyer. He was enjoying life and relished his involvement in public policy.

Late in the year 2000 Bill Williams developed an aggressive form of lymphoma which he simply regarded as another scientific problem to be solved. Work proceeded from a chemotherapy ward in the form of a new manuscript on the Aral Sea, he helped other patients who held less resolve than he and he proudly appeared, following each cycle of treatment, at morning teas in his University Department with his denuded head and undiminished wit. Cancer was a problem that Bill ultimately failed to resolve and he died in a Queensland Medical Research Centre on Australia Day. The site and the date are appropriate.

Professor Williams was an administrator and pioneer in a significant branch of science in this country and an important ecologist from a global perspective. Equally importantly was his influence on hundreds of students and colleagues who benefited from his wit, insight and blatant enthusiasm for science.

by Russell Baudinette

Professor Baudinette holds the Chair of Zoology at Adelaide University and is the Head of the Department of Environmental Biology.

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