Memorial to Sidney Henry Haughton 1888-1982 KINGSLEY DUNHAM Charleycroft, Quarryheads Lane, Durham DH1 3DY, England S. H. Haughton—vertebrate palaeontologist, strat­ i' rapher, formerly Director of the Geological Survey of South Africa, Chief Geologist of the South African Atomic Energy Commission, for a long period Honor­ ary Director of the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeon­ tological Research, and Honorary Professor of the University of the Witwatersrand—died in Johannes­ burg on 24 May 1982 at the age of 95. Haughton was born in Bethnal Green, London, on 7 May 1888, eldest son of Henry Charles Haughton and his wife, Alice Aves. After service in the Royal j Army Medical Corps in Egypt (including the Battle of Wm Omdurman) and India, his father had a position in the I W Army and Navy stores in Victoria Street. London. Sidney attended a state primary school and, from 1899 to 1906, the Essex Technical Institute at Walthamstow, gaining London Matriculation in 1904, and the London Intermediate B.Sc. (at the early age of I6V2) in 1906. In the same year he competed for and was awarded an Exhibition at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and went into residence in September. He was a student of considerable ability, taking first- class marks in Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos and being placed in Class II in his Part II subject, geology. He was one of six finalists in the school in which Marr, Harker, Gertrude Elies, and Woods were his principal teachers, but in 1909 there were few professional openings in geology, and he kept himself going by coaching and teaching in a private school until September 1911, when he was appointed geologist-palaeontologist on the staff of the South African Museum at Cape Town. So began a career in South African earth science that lasted over 70 years. At the museum, the director, Dr. Pferinguey, encouraged the young man to do as much fossil collecting as museum funds could support, and his attention was firmly turned towards the continental sediments of the Karroo System by the then well- established vertebrate palaeontologist Robert Broom. For the next nine years he spent periods of up to six months of the year in the field; he learned Afrikaans and established friendly relations with the Karroo farmers, who for the most part received him hospitably and allowed him to collect the rich vertebrate fauna on their kraals. Back at the museum he did his own preparations of his material from the solid matrix, identified the fossils, and placed on record many species new to Africa and several new to science. He was greatly encouraged by the friendship of two senior officers of the Geological Commission of the Cape of Good Hope (which in this period was absorbed in the Union of South Africa Geological Survey), A. W. Rogers and A. L. Du Toit, both stationed in Cape Town. Haughton’s father had passed on to his son two enthusiasms: singing and the game of cricket. Sidney was in the cricket team of his college at Cambridge and maintained his interest in the game throughout his life; in South Africa he also played hockey and tennis. 2 THF. GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

He had been confirmed in the Church of England in 1908, and at Cape Town he joined the choir of St. Barnabas Anglican Church. This gave him an entry to Cape Town musical circles, and in due course he found a very able pianoforte accompanist in Edith Hoal, daughter of a former Postmaster General of the Union; Edith and Sidney were married on 19 December 1914. There were two children, Edith Joan (Maynard) and Leslie Frank, born, respectively, in 1916 and 1920. The Haughtons were able to celebrate their Diamond Jubilee together, and Mrs. Haughton has survived her husband. In his records he pays tribute to his wife who, he says, gave him confidence and courage to “stick to science" even in the face of attractive offers from industry. In 1914 he was appointed Assistant Director of the Museum. He was called on for general war service between 1914 and 1918. In 1920 he left the museum to become a senior geologist on the staff of the Geological Survey and was in charge of the Cape Town office up to 1934. Fossil- collecting trips now gave place to field mapping in the southern and southwestern areas of Cape Province, along the northern side of the Orange River, with extensions into the Warmbad and Omaruru districts of South West Africa. Haughton has 13 Geological Survey maps to his credit and is author or co-author of 5 descriptive memoirs (Port Elizabeth, 1928; Cape Town, 1933; Sundays River, 1935; Camtoos Valley, 1937; Karibib, 1939). Mapping by no means put an end to his palaeontological work, which he was able to continue at the museum, and during this period the greater number of his publications (a total of 79 by 1934) were on palaeontological subjects. In 1924 a thesis on the stratigraphy and palaeontology of the Stormberg Series gained him the D.Sc. degree of Cape Town University; it remains a standard work. The fame of Haughton’s work on the amphibia, reptiles, fishes, and insects of the Karroo System had by now spread widely, and he began to receive collections of material from farther afield, from Nyasaland (now Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Tanganyika (now Tanzania), and the Congo (now Zaire). He also began to take an interest in Cretaceous invertebrates and Quater­ nary mammals. In 1932, as a result of the retirement of A. W. Rogers, the directorship of the Union Geological Survey fell vacant, and as A. L. Hall had also retired from the assistant directorship. Dr. Haughton was the senior remaining officer. However, under the Nationalist government of the time, Leo J. Krige was reluctantly persuaded to take on the directorship. In 1934 when Great Britain forsook the gold standard, the resulting crisis brought in a coalition government in Pretoria; Krige then resigned the post, and Haughton was appointed to the directorship. There can be no doubt that the appointment was a good one. The International Geological Congress of 1929, held in South Africa, had brought Haughton to a foremost position, not only because of his skilful leadership of the Table Mountain and Karroo excursions, but also because it was on his initiative that the Lexicon of Stratigraphy, designed to make sense of the nomenclature of the subject, was set up, and also it was on his proposal that a Commission on the Karroo System, which later expanded its terms of reference to comprehend the equivalent formations of the Gondwana System throughout the southern hemisphere was established. Haughton was the organiser and editor of the Africa volume of the Lexicon, which set the style for the whole of this considerable international enterprise and led eventually to books requiring over 9 feet of shelving. The two enterprises, the Lexicon and the Gondwana System, became subcommissions of the Commission for Stratigraphy when that was organised at the Algiers meeting of the International Geological Congress in 1952. The directorship necessarily broadened his interests, and he was led to direct the search for petroleum in South Africa. During World War II he belonged to the MEMORIAL TO SIDNEY HENRY HAUGHTON 3

Agricultural and Industrial Requirements Committee and was Controller of Non-ferrous Metals. Several publications on South Africa’s mineral wealth and petroleum prospects date from this period. From 1943 to 1945, Dr. Haughton was seconded to head the South African Scientific Mission in Washington, D.C. He had discussions with many leading North American geologists; he belonged to the Cosmos Club and visited mining camps as far west as Salt Lake City. His election as an Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of America followed in 1948. In South Africa the search for sources of uranium had begun in secret during World War II when G. W. Bain of Amherst and C. F. Davidson of the British Geological Survey, following up a 1932 reference to the presence of uraninite in the banket of the Witwatersrand, found that this mineral was in fact present in workable quantity in several of the reefs. Much detailed work was done by the South African Geological Survey, and upon Dr. Haughton’s retirement at age 60 from the directorship, he became Chief Geologist of the Atomic Energy Commission for six years. But there were still new fields to conquer. In 1954 he became Correspondent on Geology for the Commission for Technical Cooperation in Africa south of the Sahara, and in this capacity he produced, with the aid of Andrei L. Gove, no less than 339 geological and palaeontological abstracts in the two languages, French and English. This activity ended in 1963 as a direct result of South Africa’s becoming a republic and its secession from the Commission. One may surmise that the active period of the com­ mission’s work must have been substantially affected by the achievement of independence from the colonial powers by one African country after another. Finally, Haughton returned to his earliest field of research when in 1954 he became Honorary Director of the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research at the University of the Witwatersrand. The university made him an Honorary Professor also in 1969, and as his other commitments grew less, he spent much of his working time at the institute, driving himself over from Pretoria to Johannesburg to do so. Dr. Haughton was honoured by the Royal Society, which elected him Fellow of the Royal Society in 1961. He had become a member of the Royal Society of South Africa in 1915 and was its president in 1955-56. Other presidencies included the Geological Society of South Africa, 1925 and 1967; the Geographical Society of South Africa, 1951; the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies of South Africa, 1952; and, most re­ markably, the South African Association for the Advancement of Science in 1975 when Haughton was 87. The Geological Society of London awarded him its Murchison Fund in 1927. The Geological Society of South Africa awarded him its Draper Memorial Medal in 1961. He was a gold medallist of the Mountain Club and a past president. His honorary degrees included the LL.D. degree from Cape Town and the D.Sc. degree from Witwatersrand and Natal Universities. What of the man? He was tall, erect, distinguished, and had a good sense of humour. He responded to friendship but never forced himself upon anyone; to some, for this reason alone, he seemed aloof. An excellent administrator, he was open to sensible suggestions, and since he trusted his staff, he was willing to give them a considerable measure of freedom of judgement in carrying out their tasks. He had little time for those who refused to take research seriously or for those given to writing at unnecessary length. In a crowd he stood out as a leader, and his outstanding career illustrates clearly this capacity. 4 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF S.H. HAUGHTON The following items are selected from 159 listed publications between 1913 and 1975, at least 18 of which deal with new species or genera of vertebrates. 1924 The fauna and stratigraphy of the Stormberg Series: Annals South Africa Museum, v. 12, p. 323-497. 1925 Descriptive catalogue of the amphibia of the Karroo System: Annals South Africa Museum, v. 22, p. 227-261. 1930 The origin and age of the Karroo reptiles: International Geological Congress, 15th, Pretoria, 1929, v. 2, p. 252-262. 1936 Report of the Commission on the distribution of the Karroo (Gondwana) System: Report, International Geological Congress, 16th, Washington, D.C., v. 2, p. 1115-1146. 1938 (Editor) Lexicon of stratigraphy. I. Africa: London, T. Murby & Sons, 432 p. 1952 Geology and the development of southern Africa: Annual Proceedings of the Association of the Scientific and Technological Society of South Africa, volume for 1951-52. 1953 Gondwanaland and the distribution of early reptiles: Third A. L. Du Toit Memorial Lecture. 1954 (with Brink, R.) A bibliographical list of reptilia from the Karroo beds of Africa: Palaeont. Africana, v. 2, 187 p. 1963 The stratigraphic history of Africa south of the Sahara: London and Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 365 p. 1969 Geological history of southern Africa: Johannesburg, Geological Society of South Africa, 535 p.

Photograph Courtfsy of S o u t h A f r ic a n P a n o r a m a

Printed in U.S.A. 6/83