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Special Collections

The Geological Society holds the following three collections of personal papers of particular importance.

Greenough Collection


George Bellas Greenough (1778-1855), first President of the Society, bequeathed all his books, maps, charts, sections and engravings relating to geology to the Society, as well as the title to and interest in the map published under his name in 1819. His books were incorporated into the Society’s Library and form a significant portion of the Rare Books Collection. Many of the geological maps he owned are also held in the Map Library, but the large number of printed topographic maps of all parts of the world bearing Greenough's geological annotations and colouring are in the Archive. They are complemented by quantities of geological notes in volumes and packets, annotated books and other items.

A small but interesting collection of his correspondence is held, almost all relating to the Society in one way or other. It includes items from De la Beche, Fitton, Horner, Lord Greenock and Sir James Hall.  University College London' Library holds the main collection of Greenough’s papers, including his notebooks.  A catalogue of the collection was published in 1981.

Murchison Collection


Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871), one of the founders of Palaeozoic geology in Europe, was twice President of the Society. Most of the papers were given to the Society by Sir Kenneth Murchison in 1944.

In sheer bulk, the collection is impressive. There are 2430 letters from 876 correspondents, including Adam Sedgwick (295), Charles Lyell (44) and Archibald Geikie (67). The earliest letter is one written by the 16-year old Roderick to his uncle, General Alexander Mackenzie, in 1808, and the latest is dated August 1871, just two months before his death. Further collections of Murchison's letters are housed in the British Library's Manuscript Collection and can be found in their catalogue (Add. Mss. 46125-8). These were originally part of the gift to the Geological Society, but letters identified as being primarily of non-geological interest were passed on to the Library of the British Museum (now British Library) in the late 1940s. Another significant collection is held in Edinburgh University Library.

The Society also hold 165 field notebooks and diaries written between 1814 and 1865 and 26 volumes of an autobiographical Journal based on his field notebooks, plus sundry business papers. Twenty-five of the field notebooks contain the record of his researches in central England and Wales, 1831 to 1838, which were the basis of The Silurian System (1839) and a further twenty contain his field observations in Russia and adjoining countries that led to the Geology of Russian Europe (1845). The collection here is not complete, for a further eleven books are held at the British Geological Survey's Archive in Keyworth, Nottingham.

Letters from Murchison to Archibald Geikie and William Buckland are also held in the Archive as separate accessions.

For further information on sources for research, please refer to the following paper: Thackray, John C. (1972) Essential source material of Roderick Murchison. Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History; 6(3), p.162-170.

Moore Collection


The papers of Charles Moore (1815-1892), a West Country geologist and fossil collector who was a Fellow of the Society from 1854 until his death, were presented to the Society by Moore's friend and obituarist, H H Winwood.

The correspondence consists of 240 letters from 85 writers dating between 1849 and 1881. There are interesting letters from H.B. Brady (20) on foraminifera, Thomas Davidson (9) on brachiopods, John Phillips (7) on Australian fossils and Richard Owen (9) on the teeth of Microlestes, an early mammal discovered by Moore. There are also letters on fossil sponges, ammonites, belemnites, and on the controversial Eozoon.

Other Collections of Note


These include:
  • The correspondence of T G Bonney (68 pieces, 1858-1919)
  • The notebooks of Joseph Prestwich (50 vols, 1832-90)
  • Diaries and notebooks of Lewis Leigh Fermor (1898-1950)
  • Correspondence of Leonard Hawkes (160 pieces, 1914-64)
  • Papers of Janet Watson (1923-85, 6 boxes). Listed by NCUACS, the catalogue is available in the Library and a description of the collection is online, with a detailed listing on the A2A (Access to Archives) website.
  • The field notebooks of Robert Milner Shackleton (120, c1920-1970s). Listed by NCUACS, the catalogue is available in the Library and a description of the collection is online.
  • The drawings of Dr John MacCulloch (1773-1835). The Society has long held a fine collection but this has been recently augmented by the generous gift by Dr Henry Oakeley of a previously unknown volume of sketches. These have been conserved and mounted in albums generously funded by the MacCulloch Field Owners consortium.