Gorham, Stanley Warren

CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 1975
STANLEY WARREN GORHAM
to be Doctor of Science

For those of us who look upon New Brunswick as home, either by birth or through adoption, it has always been a source of satisfaction that the pace of urban development has been more leisurely here than in other areas of Canada. For those individuals who have devoted themselves to the special study of animals, birds, fishes or plants -- the naturalists among us -- this situation is an undisguised blessing. Among these is Stanley Warren Gorham, one of New Brunswick's foremost naturalists, whom we honour today.

Stanley Gorham was born at Browns Flat in Kings County during the first quarter of the century. One cannot doubt that the mighty St. John River had a pervasive influence upon his life, as it has always had upon all aspects of existence in this Province, and that it led him ultimately and inevitably to his deep love of nature, an alliance which was not interrupted by formal education or by North Atlantic service with the Marine Service of the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War.

At an accelerating pace, he has devoted himself to his chosen profession, serving for twelve years as Zoological Assistant on the staff of the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa and for eight years as Assistant Curator of the Natural Science Department of the New Brunswick Museum. He is currently Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at that institution.

As ripples radiate outward from a stone cast into a deep pool of water, so, in the deeper pool of world knowledge, has the influence of Stanley Gorham spread on a widening pattern. His research into the mammals and other vertebrates of this Province has led him to all parts of New Brunswick; in Canada, his investigation of amphibians, birds, fishes, marine invertebrates and reptiles has taken him to areas which include the Kootenay Valley and Vancouver Island, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Sable Island Bank, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and the Canadian Arctic. His search for knowledge has caused him to visit, in addition, such distant points as Australia, Brazil, England, the Falkland Islands, Fiji and Germany.

Nor may we overlook his contribution to written scholarship. Over a period of many years he has recorded carefully his extensive research. As a result, he has provided fellow-researchers and the public at large with an extensive array of scholarly works. In Canada his research and writing have ranged from notes on fishes from the Browns Flat area to the spring emergence of the Western Chorus Frog; and abroad, from a treatise on a rare Fiji snake to a history of the so-called Falkland Islands "wolf."

Stanley Warren Gorham has created an eminent place for himself among our Canadian naturalists, as administrator, author and researcher, and, in so doing, leaves us in his debt. The University of New Brunswick is privileged to add his name to the nominal roll of its most distinguished alumni.

Praeses admittit Stanleium Warren Gorham honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Scientia.

From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 2