Lecture Notes of L Harrison [Department of Zoology] (Series 340)

This series originated from the Department of Zoology and appears to consist of lecture notes. The notes are signed L [Launcelot] Harrison. Only one set of notes is dated viz 1912. Also included is a bound volume of notes pertaining to Zoology I laboratory classes. This volume has also been used for some accounting records in 1920.

Harrison completed his BSc in 1913 with 1st class honours in Zoology III, 2nd class honours in Botany III and received the University Medal for Zoology [University Calendar 1914]. In 1914, he worked as a junior demonstrator in biology for 5 months from 23 March [G18: Salaries and Wages Register Vol 2, Folio 21]. In 1914 he won the John Coutts Scholarship and an Exhibition of 1851 Scholarship on which he went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England (B.A. (Research), 1916). In 1915, he worked on the louse problem for the War Office at the Quick Laboratory, under Professor GHF Nuttall FRS. In 1916, he was offered the position of entomologist (civilian) to the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force; he was subsequently gazetted as a military officer. He contracted malaria and typhus in April 1918 while carrying out experiments at the Isolation Hospital in Baghdad; he was invalided to India and thence to England [Sydney University War Service records: Archives S13]. Harrison re-joined the University in July 1919 as lecturer and demonstrator. From 1920 to 1922, he was acting Professor of Zoology, and from 1923 to 1928, Challis Professor of Zoology [Senate Minutes 1923 and 1928: G1/1/16, p 324; G1/1/19, pp 45, 113]. Harrison carried out research on the embryology of the platypus. A popular public lecturer and publicist on such topics as evolution and heredity, Harrison was president of the Royal Zoological from 1923 to 1924), and the Linnean societies of New South Wales in 1928, and a trustee of the Australian Museum in Sydney from 1924. He was president of the Sydney University Union from 1920 to 1921, and active in university science and dramatic societies. He died suddenly on 20 February 1928.