Foreword (continued)

He was allowed to drive the steam engine and to operate it when it was used to thresh the crops.

Thus from an early age Allan lead an active outdoor life. He was interested in sport, including boxing, and later, when at university participated in that sport, competing against Phillip Law, who later in life was Director of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE). Another university boxer at that time, in a heavier division, was Weary Dunlop who much later was knighted as Sir Edward Dunlop for his contribution as a medical officer in Australian prisoner of war camps in Indonesia and Malaya.

I feel privileged to have been able to persuade Allan Cornish to have his memoirs tape-recorded. He was one of the first young men with the foresight to realise that a university education was needed if one was to develop the science of meteorology in this country. His initiative made a major contribution to the entry of the Bureau of Meteorology into the new era of science and technology.

I am grateful for the support of Dr John Zillman, Director of Meteorology, in sponsoring the publication of these Metarch Papers. I must also acknowledge the assistance of Esther Amott, Ian Forrest and Ian Stark in the production of this number in the series of Metarch Papers.

W J Gibbs

Melbourne
June 1995

Bureau of Meteorology