Rudder, Edward John   (~1939 - 2019)

Born about 1939 in Gladstone, Qld; died on 22 January 2019 in Brisbane, aged 80.

John Rudder was born in Gladstone and grew up in the Nagoorin district in the Boyne Valley. His father was a reurned soldier from World War One and had a dairy farm the Boyne Valley Soldier Setlement area.

In 1952, he passed Scholarship and went to the Queensland Agriculural High School and College at Gatton in 1953 at the age of 14 to complete his Junior in l954.

In l955 he commenced the five-year Forest learner course in the Department of Forestry. Over the next five years John undertook training at a range of centres in Queensland.

On completion of his training in North Queensland he was appointed a ganger then an overseer at Kuranda Here John was responsible for the silvicultural work in the rainforest and also for the research work in the establishment and measurement of research growth plots in the rainforest. His senior research oflicers at this timne were Don Nicholson and Eddie Volck. John met his future wife Coral in July 1960 and they were married in January 1963.

In the early 1970s, due to family reasons, John was keen to move closer in Brisbane. He was successful in geting a forest ranger's position at Amamoor in September 1972.

While at Amamoor a position in data preparation was created within the research branch. Head Office. Eddie Volck, the senior research officer at Atherton was aware of John's strong interest in computing and research from his time in Atherton and strongly suggested that John apply for this position.

In about July 1974 he and his family, which by that time had increased to two boys, Tery and Stephen, took a three-month long-service trip around Australia. On their return John was successful with the research position and he moved to Brisbane in October 1974.

John was the primary person responsible for the collation of data and preparation of the punch cards for all the research trials. He was especially proud of the datahase of the rainforest trials in North Oeensland. John furthered his skills in computing by undertaking an Associate Diploma Course in Computings graduating in March 1989.

John then held a numbeer of positions in sales and marketing within the information technology branch before retiring in 1998 after 43 years in the Department.

He died on 22 January 2019 at the age of 80.

Source: Extracted from:
Huth, J. (2022) 'As We Were - prose, poetry and people, from Queensland's Forest History', p.187-188.
Portrait Photo: no date, from above publication.

Collecting localities for 'Rudder, J.' from AVH (2024)

Data from 56 specimens