 In 1941 he was elected a Fellow of the RAOU in 1941 and the previous year he had been the first recipient of the Australian Natural History Medallion for his work in ornithology and popularising natural history.Chisholm was a prolific and popular writer of articles and books, mainly on birds and nature but also on history, literature and biography.He is not to be confused with his near-contemporary the anti-semite and enthusiast of Germany's National Socialists, the Melbourne University linguist Alan R. Chisholm.