Marine biologist, sportsman and Albany Golf Club historian Ray George lauded with Order of Medal of Australia

Across his eventful 96-years of life — highlights of which include identifying WA’s most iconic crustacean, being a triple-code State sportsman, and curating golf club — receiving an OAM tops Ray George’s list. The Albany retiree, fondly known as ‘Ray the Cray’, received an Order of the Medal of Australia and was one of three Great Southern men named in the King’s Birthday Honours on June 9. He counts it as his proudest achievement. “I’m very honoured,” he said. “When I read the write-ups, eventually I can convince myself that it’s probably a good result. “I’ve always been lucky and when I come to crossroads and wonder, ‘which way do I go?’ I find I’ve nearly always taken the right one.” Born in Nedlands in 1929, Dr George grew up playing any sport that was around, but was a self-confessed water baby. A champion swimmer, he represented the State in both surf life saving and water polo and helped bring home championship trophies. After a “knife” blow to the throat from the hand of a nearby player ended his water polo career, he picked up a hockey stick and kept with it for the next 30 years, again competing on the national stage. His most recognisable achievement, however, stems from the realms of science. It was in the late 1950s when while working at CSIRO during a post-war crayfish boom in the American market, he was appointed to research the biology of a crustacean then known as the WA crayfish. “I got stuck into it and realised that they had the wrong name,” he said. “So, I studied the animal, looked at this and that and the spines and colours, and realised that it was undescribed. “It had the wrong name so I just, I had to call it, give it a new name. “So being West Australian, and knowing that it was restricted to Western Australia, I called it Panuliris Cygnus, cygnus because the State emblem is a swan.” The Western Rock Lobster, as they’re also known, now makes up one of Australia’s richest fishing industry. Following the crayfish project’s shutdown, Dr George took a post as the curator of invertebrates at the WA Museum, where he broadened his studies to include the entire spiny lobster family. During his 26 years at the museum, he travelled around the world to compare the effect of different ocean systems on crustacean biology and life cycles and produced more than 50 papers on various crustacea. Upon retiring to the Great Southern in the 1980s, he joined the Albany Golf Club, where alongside working at lowering his handicap he served on the committee, coached the juniors, edited the Wooly Bush newsletter and meticulously documented the club’s history and heritage collection. This quarter-century of archiving culminated in Les Johnson’s History of the Albany Golf Club, published in 1998 and Albany Golf Club: Celebrating 125 Years, published in 2023. Both books, and the State heritage recognition of the 127-year-old site, which is considered among WA’s oldest, would have been impossible without Dr George’s tireless notetaking and research. He was granted life membership in 2020. Dr George was nominated for the OAM by his daughter-in-law Jill who, when compiling notes for his memoirs, realised he had lived a rather impressive life. “She was doing my life history, and then at the end of it, she said to herself, ‘oh, gee, this is pretty good stuff’,” he said. “I’ve had a good life and I try to be honest and true and genuine and help other people. “I’ve kept on writing, doing my research and papers as well as poems and things and that as well as team sports is where that you get the best building up of your character. “This medal has to be at the top of it though — the only thing next is Order of the World.”