Susan Turner reports the
sad death
of Anthony “Tony” Thulborn (JRGS 1955-1962)
Dr.
Susan Turner of Brisbane, Australia, writes: "My husband,
Dr.
Richard Anthony “Tony” Thulborn - pictured
left aged 11 - was a fine man and had an
outstanding life." Click on thumbnail to view a larger version.
Born in Croydon Hospital in March 1944,
Tony's home was
in Norwood and he was a staunch Crystal Palace supporter. He attended
John Ruskin GS from 1955-1962 and left after taking A-Levels in
Geography, Geology and French.
Tony then attended
Norwood College for other A-Levels and went on to Chelsea College,
University of London, finally gaining his PhD at University College,
London on the subject of dinosaurs.
Dr. Tony Thulborn
went on to a post-doc at Birmingham University and eventually gained a
job at the University of Queensland in early 1974 as lecturer in the
Department of Zoology, where he was employed for the next 30 years.
He is pictured
right in his university gown.
Tony lived in Queensland for the rest of his life, marrying
Susan Turner in 1986. He worked on many Mesozoic reptiles and became one of the
experts on dinosaur footprints, notably bringing to life the Lark Quarry
Winton dinosaur stampede, the only one known in the world (and a model
for the scene in the film Jurassic Park). Tony worked on fossils from many
countries and wrote the classic textbook Dinosaur Tracks,
published in 1990 by Chapman & Hall. In later
years, he suffered from ill health with osteoporosis but eventually took
up his camera and produced prize-winning photos of local wildlife,
especially birds.
He died aged 81 of pneumonia after a fall on 22nd July of this year. More details of his illustrious career can be found here. Tony’s memorial service was held in Brisbane on Tuesday, 30th September.
Paul Graham (JRGS 1959-66)
adds: By coincidence,
I too arrived in Australia in 1974, initially working in Darwin before
marrying a Brisbane girl in 1975. One of my brothers-in-law in
Queensland, Richard Piper, is an entomologist. He and a
close friend, Professor Clive Jones of James Cook
University, Cairns, both attended the University of Queensland. Clive
remembers Tony Thulborn as a highlight of his undergraduate years, a
charismatic young man with engaging idiosyncrasies whose lectures in
anthropology and paleontology were very stimulating.
It
is perhaps fortuitous that Tony bowed out on life when Crystal Palace FC
was at a particularly high point, having earlier this year won the FA
Challenge Cup beating Manchester City 1-0.