E-O
John William Evans (1857-1930)
Evans was a mineralogist, petrologist philosopher and traveller who abandoned the law for geology and explored Bolivia and Brazil. He was appointed State Geologist in the Indian states of Kathiawar and Mysore. He returned to England in 1904 and held academic appointments until 1927 when he went into industry and travelled in Sinai for the Geophysical Company.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
Pupil of Sir Humphry Davy, a founder of the Geological Society, Faraday grew up to be one of the greatest scientists of the 19th Century. He spent most of his working life at the Royal Institution, eventually holding the Fullerian Professorship of Chemistry. Although a distinguished chemist and the discoverer of benzene, Faraday is most famous for his work on electricity and magnetism, and for his remark to William Gladstone that electricity would be useful because Mr Gladstone might one day be able tax it. When published, his 1821 discovery of electromagnetic rotation - the basis of the first electric motor - enraged William Wollaston, who gives his name to the Geological Society's senior medal. Wollaston thought Faraday had stolen his ideas. Faraday's other great achievements included refusing not only a knighthood, but also presidency of the Royal Society (twice).
William George Fearnsides (1879-1968)
Economic and structural geologist and stratigrapher, Fearnsides went from Cambridge to Sheffield University in 1913 and there made studies of the Coal Measures in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire, as well as the Lower Palaeozoic of North Wales, Northern Ireland, Norway and Sweden. The Society’s Fearnsides Fund "To advance geological science" was established in his memory.
Rev. Osmond Fisher (1817-1914)
English geologist-cleric.Worked on the stratigraphy and invertebrate fossils of Dorset, and the geomorphology of Norfolk. Independently originated the contraction theory of orogeny (and other crustal phenomena - see Elie de Beaumont, earlier in this series). Opublished The Physics of the Earth's Crust (1881).
Sir John Smith Flett (1869-1947)
Flett was a petrologist and worked with the Geological Survey, of which he became Director (1920-1935). He wrote a history of the Survey (1937) on its centenary and wrote onScottish petrology and volcanology of the West Indes. The lecture theatre in the Natural History Museum’s Earth Galleries is named after him.
Sir Archibald Geikie (1835-1924)
Scots petrologist, stratigrapher, student of the history of geology and geomorphologist, Geikie worked on the Geological Survey from 1885. He became Director of the Survey in 1892, but also held the post of Professor Geology at Edinburgh (1871-1881). He made notable contributions to the study of the Old Red Sandstone and the igneous rocks and scenery of his native Scotland. A fine portrait in oils hangs in the Royal Society, of which he became President. Wrote several volumes of autobiography, and the famous Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain (1897).
Grove Karl Gilbert (1843-1918)
G.K. Gilbert was a US geomorphologist, structural geologist and map-maker. He worked on many US surveys with the USGS, studying the ancient lakes (Lake Bonneville) of Utah. Hew as an early pioneer of isostatic theory, made studies in glacial geology and was a close observer of the processes of transport and deposition.
Victor Moritz Goldschmidt (1888-1947)
Norwegian mineralogist, petrologist and geochemist. Born in Switzerland, he worked mostly in Norway. His work helped to lay the foundations of modern geochemistry, a fact commemorated in the distinguished Goldschmidt Conferences. His work began to disentangle the complexities of Norway's metamorphic rocks.
John Walter Gregory (1864-1932)
Gregory was an intrepid Scottish explorer, stratigrapher, invertebrate palaeontologist and geomorphologist who undertook a number of adventures to India, Spitzbergen, Australia and Africa and the Himalayas. He was the first professor at the University of Melbourne, where he travelled to the "Dead Heart" (his term) of the continent. From Glasgow University he mounted expeditions to Libya, Angola, India and the East African Rift Valley, as well as Chinese Tibet. He wrote over 300 papers on a bewilderingly wide variety of geological topics.
Gustave Emile Haug 1861-1927
French stratigrapher and palaeontologist who worked at the University of Strasbourg and the Sorbonne (from 1917). He was responsible for important studies of Alpine geology and ammonites, wrote three volumes of (privately printed) autobiography. He was among the first to discuss the evolution of Devonian goniatites, and wrote a notable textbook Traite de Geologie, (1907) which was still among the most up to date treatments of geosyncline theory at the time of his death.
Henry Hicks (1837-1899)
Welsh physician and geologist. Studied the Precambrian of Anglesey, Caernarvonshire and Pembrokeshire, Devonian rocks of Devon and Somerset, cave deposits and other Quaternary sediments.
Arthur Holmes (1890-1965)
In this rare youthful picture, we see Arthur Holmes at or about the time he commenced his early work in Mozambique (1911). Holmes was a petrologist, geomorphologist, geophysicist, structural geologist and most famously geochronologist who made major contribution to the use of radioactivity in determining the age of the Earth. A early precursor of plate tectonic theory, he is largely remembered by geologists today as the author of the seminal textbook Principles of Physical Geology (1944). He was married to igneous petrologist Doris L. Reynolds.
Edward Hull (1829-1917)
Stratigrapher, structural and economic geologist, Hull was an Ulsterman who worked for the Geological Survey for 41 years from 1850. He studied the rocks of Wales, the Jurassic of the West of England and many other areas of the UK and Ireland. He was Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland from 1868 and Professor at the Dublin Royal College of Sciences, travelling to the Middle Eastin 1883. In 1910 he wrote a memoir entitled Reminiscences of a strenuous life.
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)
Huxley, chiefly famous for his powerful advocacy of Darwinism, was a physician, zoologist, palaeontologist, philosopher, educationalist and social reformer. He made important contributions to the study of the evolution of horses, and late Palaeozoic vertebrates. He became Fellow of the Society in 1856 and was its 32nd President (1868-70). His career began, rather like Darwin’s, with a long sea voyage (aboard the HMS "Rattlesnake"). A symbol of the progressive de-gentrification and professionalization of science in the mid to late 19th Century, he established the existence of a scientific career. He popularised geoscientific discoveries in his famous lectures to Working Men at the Jermyn Street museum, and was Professor of Natural History at the Royal School of Mines.
John Wesley Judd (1840-1916)
English Petrologist, volcanologist, mineralogist, who held the Chair at the Royal Schoolof Mines (Imperial College) from 1876-1895. He developed a classification of igneous rocks, recognising the intermediate and ultrabasic categories.
Alfred John Jukes-Browne (1851–1914)
Jukes-Browne was an invertebrate palaeontologist and stratigrapher with the Geological Survey, specialising in Cambridgeshire, Aberdeenshire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire. He also made overseas visits to Cyprus and Barbados. His main works included a three-vulume treatise on The Cretaceous Rocks of Britain. He retired from the Survey in 1902, and went to live in Torquay, where this photograph
Sir Albert Ernest Kitson (1868-1937)
English mining geologist, born in India and raised in Australia. From 1906-11 he was in charge of the Mineral Survey of Southern Nigeria, whose coal deposits he discovered and mapped. Also found the bauxite, manganese and diamond deposits of Ghana (then Gold Coast). Retired in 1930 but worked on, studying the goldfields of Kenya and elsewhere in East Africa.
William Dickson Lang (1878-1966)
English invertebrate palaeontologist and stratigrapher. Worked (at the Natural History Museum) on rugose corals and bryozoa. After his retirement he did extensive work on the stratigraphy of Dorset (Lower Jurassic) and the history of its study.
Herbert Lapworth (1875-1933)
Son of the great Charles Lapworth, Herbert was a civil engineer, engineering geologist, stratigrapher and palaeontologist.
John Lubbock, Lord Avebury (1834-1913)
Lubbock was a banker, politician, prehistorian and geomorphologist who wrote two books on the scenery of Switzerland and England. He was a pioneer in the experimental study of mountain-building.
Horace Woolaston Monckton (1857-1931)
English historian, prehistorian and geologist. Worked on the Coal Measure fossils of North Staffordshire, and Quaternary deposits. Emigrated (to South Africa) in 1880, where he studied mineral resources and hydrogeology in Transvaal, Orange Free State and Natal.