From 1918 to 1945 Heber Longman was the Director of the Queensland Museum. Longman was President of the Royal Society of Queensland (1919, 1939) and the Queensland Naturalists’ Club, Vice-Chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Committee, member of the Australian National Research Council, Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London. He was also the winner of the Australian Natural History medallion (1946) and the coveted Mueller medal (1952). He was the husband of the first woman Queensland parliamentarian, Irene Longman. The Longmans lived in Chelmer.

Impact On Brisbane Society

Heber Longman is probably the most distinguished naturalist in Queensland. He published about 70 research papers in the museum’s journal. Longman was not a restrictive naturalist in the nineteenth century sense of the term, a mere collector or technical chronicler of artefacts. He was a philosophical naturalist, and published his book, The Religion of a Naturalist (London, 1911). He contributed to philosophical debates in Brisbane through clubs and societies, including the Queensland Rationalist Society.

Citations

J. C. H. Gill, ‘Longman, Albert Heber (1880–1954)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/longman-albert-heber-7227/text12513, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 3 November 2017. This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, (MUP), 1986.

Dahlitz, Ray. Secular Who’s Who: a Biographical Directory of Freethinkers, Secularists, Rationalists, Humanists and Others involved in Australia’s Secular Movement from 1850 onwards, R. Dahlitz, Balwyn, Vic, 1994.

Image Citation

Longman, Heber Albert (1880 – 1954). [https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/longman-heber-albert.html]