10 Facts About Godfrey Howitt

Godfrey Howitt, entomologist, was born in Heanor in Derbyshire to Thomas Howitt.

Godfrey Howitt married Phoebe Bakewell the following year, on 6 April 1831, at the Friends' Meeting House in Castle Donington.

Godfrey Howitt practised medicine in Leicester and in Nottingham was honorary physician at both the City Infirmary and the General Hospital.

Godfrey Howitt erected a prefabricated wooden house he had brought with him and shortly after arriving began work at the Melbourne Hospital.

Godfrey Howitt continued to work and by 1845 he had extensive lands which covered a number of streets, a large garden, fields near Yea and a farm in Caulfield.

Godfrey Howitt was made president and honorary physician of the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum in 1847.

From 1853 to 1871 Godfrey Howitt was a member of the University of Melbourne's council and on the Medical School Committee.

Godfrey Howitt was a founder of the University of Melbourne Medical School in 1858.

Godfrey Howitt was the first vice-president of the Philosophical Society of Victoria in 1854, Treasurer and Vice President of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria in 1855 and 1856 respectively and a founding member of the Royal Society of Victoria, its successor from 1859 to 1868.

Godfrey Howitt helped to found the Entomological Society of London, was a member of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh and in 1839 published The Nottinghamshire Flora.