Harold Burnell Carter


Harold Burnell Carter, BVSc, DVSc, FRSE, AM; was an Australian scientist whose work in the middle decades of the twentieth century at the CSIR Australia's national scientific research organization laid foundations for the scientific understanding of the biology of Merino fine wool upon which much of Australia's economy depended at the time. As an author, he has been collected by libraries.

Research

Carter's investigations were focussed upon the histology of the wool fibre, its embryonic development and the genetic and environmental factors that caused variability in wool quality. His aim was to establish the necessary scientific knowledge by which the economic value of the Merino could be improved. Through this work he conceived the idea of an Australian national Sheep and Wool laboratory. In the early 1940s he drafted a plan for such laboratories which he developed in discussion with his senior colleagues Lionel B. Bull and Ian Clunies Ross. In 1945, as part of Australia's post War economic development plan, an Act of the Australian Parliament was passed for their construction. The laboratories, built at Prospect Hill near Sydney under Carter's supervision, were opened in 1953 as the "Sheep Biology Laboratory" of the CSIRO.
Following completion of the Sheep Biology Laboratory Carter resigned from the CSIRO and took a position at the Animal Breeding Research Organisation in Edinburgh, Scotland. In the later decades of his life he devoted himself increasingly to primary historical scientific research on the origins of the Merino as a producer of fine wool. This work culminated in a major biography of Sir Joseph Banks, a founder of Australia's Merino fine wool economy.

Honours