Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor's notebook/diary, 1902 & 1908.
Cost of conservation £160
Lewis Leigh Fermor. LDGSL/348/1/2
Lewis Leigh Fermor (1880-1954) had a long and successful career working for the Geological Survey of India. During WW1 he assisted the Railway Board and the Indian Munitions Board, for which he received an OBE in 1919. He led the surveying of the Archaean rocks of Madhya Pradesh both before and after the First World War. Although he officially became director of the Geological Survey of India in 1932, he had in fact been acting as such for several years. Fermor retired from the directorship in 1935 but continued to live in India until 1939 as a consulting geologist.
This small diary/notebook covers the period 1902 and 1908 and notably details Fermor’s voyage out to India to take up his first post at the Geological Survey of India. The 1908 entries record a trip from India to Switzerland.
Above: Cover of Fermor's notebook/diary (LDGSL/348/2/2). The leather has completely split down the spine.
Above: Pencil sketch of Stromboli, opposite a page dated 7 October 1902, drawn during the voyage to India on the ship Coromandel. The notebook was obviously very cheap, hence the yellowing of the pages reflecting the poor quality of the paper.
Fermor became a fellow of the Geological Society in 1902, receiving the Bigsby Medal in 1921 for his earlier work on garnets, and served on Council from 1943-1947. Other honorariums included a knighthood in 1935. He married his first wife, Muriel Ambler, in 1909, with whom he had two children (Vanessa and the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor) before divorcing. His married his second wife, Frances Mary Case, in 1933. Fermor died on 24 May 1954.
It was his second wife Frances who donated his archive to the Society as well as bequeathing what became the Fermor Fund in 1990.
Conservation
The cover will be repaired and strengthened, then reattached to the pages. Cost of conservation: £160.
If you would like to sponsor the conservation of these items, please contact the Library team at library@geolsoc.org.uk.