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Joe Britten in1986; photo by Brian Morton
Joe Britton was born on 14 October 1942 in Fort
Worth, Texas, and died peacefully after a long illness and battle
with multiple myeloma on 29 November 2006. Joe was educated at
Texas Christian University (TCU), Fort Worth, graduating in 1963
with a degree in biology. He also completed a M.Sc. degree at
TCU on the marine molluscs of Puerto Rico and then went to George
Washington University in Washington to undertake a Ph.D. degree
under the supervision of Harald H. Rehder on a revision of the
Lucinidae of the Western Atlantic. He worked with the collections
at the Smithsonian Institution and obtained the degree in 1970.
Following their graduation, Joe married fellow TCU student Rebecca
(Becky) Brooks on 28 December 1963 and, following completion of
his Ph.D in Washington, returned to his alma mater in 1971 as
an Assistant Professor in Biology. Here he began research on Texas
freshwaters and soon discovered the introduced Asian clam, Corbicula
fluminea, that was fast becoming a pest throughout the southern
states of the U.S.A., specifically with regard to the blockage
of power station cooling water systems, including nuclear ones.
Increasingly, Joe's research interests began to focus on the marine
environment and in 1989 the co-authored text-book Shore Ecology
of the Gulf of Mexico was published by the University of Texas
Press (reprinted 1994) and became an instant success.
Joe loved to travel - to the Caribbean, Hong Kong, Australia and
Europe - and co-authored Coastal Ecology of the Açores
that was published in 1998 by Sociedade Afonso Chaves (English
and Portuguese editions).
Joe's last overseas research trip was in 2000 to
participate in the Eleventh International Marine Biological Workshop
on the Dampier Archipelago, Western Australia. His co-authored
papers published in the proceedings of that workshop are among
his last as his health began to decline and because of his wish
to spend more time with his family in Texas. Over a publishing
career spanning 32 years, Joe Britton established himself as a
freshwater and marine biologist of especial note with an abiding
interest in malacology.
More than this, however, Joe was acknowledged by
all the many generations of undergraduates he taught to be a superb
teacher, his one regret being that his university did not allow
his department to supervise higher degree students. Joe was also
an amazing organizer. Each year he organized and taught on a field
trip from Texas to the west coast of the USA that became known
to generations of students as the "Western Trip". On
this trip, a convoy of assorted vehicles containing staff and
students, co-led by Joe, would head off west on a round trip,
camping and exploring the social, archaeological, geological and
biological features of the nation's "Great West". On
one memorable trip, the convoy, as always loaded to the gunnels
with gear to last two weeks of field work and camping, was instructed
by Joe to meet him at a general store on the outskirts of Fort
Worth. And, importantly, to leave in one vehicle a space of 4'
x 2' x 1'!!
This instruction was duly followed and drawing up the vehicles
in front of Joe in the car park outside the store, field trip
participants were overjoyed to see that he held a parcel of the
said dimensions labeled "Portable Kitchen Sink".I first
met Joe in 1978 and established with him a friendship and mutually
respectful working and publishing partnership that lasted until
his death.
He was a wonderfully warm, co-operative, intelligent and generous
colleague who was liked by all and who never had an unkind word
to say about anyone. Joe was a truly lovely man who will be sorely
missed professionally and as a friend by many but, especially,
by me.
Joe is survived by Becky, his wife of 42 years, their three children,
Mark, David and Janet, and seven grandchildren, all of whom he
loved, nurtured and cherished and who returned that love.In terms
of a career and a family, blended so worthily, what more could
a man ask for?
Brian Morton
E-mail: prof_bsmorton@hotmail.com
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