Second Lieutenant Archibald William Robertson Don
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Portrait of Lt A W R Don, aged 24, 1915. From Sayle, C, 'Archibald Don-A Memoir’, London: John Murray (1918), p85. |
Fellowship details: No.4928, elected 4 December 1912.
Born: 11 December 1890
Died: 11 September 1916, Salonika, Greece.
Biography:
Fourth son of Robert Bogle Don and of Lucy Flora Don, Archibald William Robertson Don was born on 11 December 1890 in Broughty Ferry [now part of Dundee], and educated at Winchester College from 1904 to 1909. In 1909 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, being elected to an Exhibition in 1911 then later a Senior Scholarship. Although he became an enthusiastic geology student under Professor Thomas McKenny Hughes, on leaving Cambridge in 1914 he planned on a career in medicine, however war broke out before he could take up a place at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. His interest in geology remained, being elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in December 1912.
Soon after the outbreak of war, Don worked with the British Red Cross on a motor ambulance in France until he obtained his commission in December 1914. He served in France, 1914-1915 and in Salonika in 1916, but in July of that year fell ill with malaria. He seemed to have recovered but later suffered a relapse and died in hospital on 11 September 1916.
Cemetery: Salonika (Lembet Road) Military Cemetery.
Bibliography:
- Don, A W R, “On the Nature of Parka decipiens”, ‘Geological Magazine’, Decade V, vol IX (1912), p469.
- Don, A W R, “On the Nature of Parka decipiens”, ‘Report of the 82nd Meeting of the British Association’, (1913), p464.
- Don, A W R & G Hickling, “On Parka decipiens”, ‘Abstracts of the Proceedings of the Geological Society’ (1914-1915), pp95-96; ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society’, vol 71 (1915), pp648-665.
- Obituary, ‘The Times’, 19 Sep 1916.
- Obituary, ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society’, vol 73 (1917), Proceedings p lxv.
- Obituary, “Annual Report 1916”, ‘Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association’ , vol 28 (1917,) p52.
- Sayle, C, ‘Archibald Don – A Memoir’, London: John Murray (1918).
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