founding of the Australian Democrats political party, and he was the chairman of the meeting in Melbourne in 1977 at which the party was launched. The Age reported in 1981 that "Sir Mark Oliphant warned the Dunstan Government of the 'grave dangers' of appointing an Australian Aborigine, Sir Douglas Nicholls, to succeed him as South Australia's Governor". Oliphant had secretly written, "[t]here is something inherent in the personality of the Aborigine which makes it difficult for him to adapt fully to the ways of the white man." The authors of Oliphant's biography noted that "that was the prevailing attitude of almost the entire white population of Australia until well after World War II". Oliphant was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1959, and was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1977 "for eminent achievement and merit of the highest degree in the field of public service and in service to the crown". Late in life, Oliphant watched his wife, Rosa, suffer before her death in 1987, and he became an advocate for voluntary euthanasia. Death On 14 July 2000, he died in Canberra, at the age of 98. His body was cremated. His daughter Vivian died from a brain tumour in 2008, after his son Michael died from colon cancer in 1971. Legacy Places and things named in honour of Oliphant include the Oliphant Building at the Australian National University, the Mark Oliphant Conservation Park, a South Australian high schools science competition, the Oliphant Wing of the Physics Building at the University of Adelaide, a school in the Adelaide suburb of Munno Para West, and a bridge on Parkes Way in Canberra near his old laboratory at the ANU. His papers are in the Adolph Basser Library at the Australian Academy of Science, and the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide. Oliphant's nephew, Pat Oliphant, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. His daughter-in-law, Monica Oliphant, is a distinguished Australian physicist specialising in the field of renewable energy, for which she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2015. Honours and awards 1937 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society 1943 Awarded Hughes Medal by the Royal Society 1946 Awarded Silvanius Thomson Medal, Institute of Radiology 1948 Awarded Faraday Medal by the Institution of Engineers 1954 Elected (Foundation) Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science 1954 Elected