Ida Sowerby McAulay was a Tasmanian author with a particular interest in bushwalking, skiing and the wilderness areas of Tasmania. She contributed articles for magazines including 'The Tasmanian Mail', the weekly publication of the Mercury newspaper, Hobart. McAulay also worked for C. E. W. Bean, the Australian journalist and war correspondent who later prepared the official history of the Australian A.I.F. in World War One. ;;Born in 1898, Ida was the daughter of feminist Ida Mary McAulay - nee Butler (1858 - 1949) and Alexander McAulay (1863 - 1931), the first professor of mathematics and physics at the newly formed University of Tasmania and a pioneer of hydro-electricity in Tasmania. Ida had a twin sister Mary Sowerby McAulay (Mrs Eric Scriven, Sydney) and a brother, Alexander Leicester McAulay (1895 - 1969), a lecturer in physics at the University of Tasmania.;;Ida McAulay died in Hobart, aged 90 in June 1989.