In the September 2017 Newsletter of the Australian National Placenames Survey, the editors report the death of Vern O’Brien. Affectionately known as the “grand old man of Australian toponymy”, O’Brien was instrumental in researching and documenting the origin of named geographical features throughout the Northern Territories. Among his impressive list of scholarly accomplishments, O’Brien was the Surveyor-General and the Director of Lands in Darwin and served as a prominent member of numerous scholarly toponymic organizations such as the Committee for Geographical Names of Australia, the Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory, and the Historical Society of the Northern Territory.
