Obituaries
Professor Sir Kingsley Dunham, 1910^2001
Kingsley Charles Dunham, who died in Durham by the lectures of Arthur Holmes, then Professor at the age of 91 on 5 April 2001,wasbornin the in Durham, and transferred to Honours Geology, Dorset village of Sturminster Newton on in which he was the only candidate, receiving 2 January 1910, the only child of Ernest individual tuition from Holmes and his lecturer Pedder Dunham and his wife Edith Agnes. Bill Hopkins. After graduating with a rst-class However, when he was three the family moved honours BSc degree in 1930, he was offered a to Brancepeth, near Durham, where his father postgraduate studentship in Durham to work managed the estate, successively as Land Agent under Holmes and chose to research the genesis to Viscount Boyne and the Duke of of the lead-zinc- uorine-barium mineralization in Westminster. the Northern Pennine Ore eld, upon which he His early education was at the village school in continued investigations throughout his life. A Brancepeth, followed by the Durham Johnston PhD degree for his thesis on the subject was School. With strong support and encouragement awarded in 1932. from his parents, he matriculated well and gained Upon gaining a Commonwealth Fund entrance to the University of Durham as a Fellowship in 1932, study was undertaken in the Foundation Scholar at Hat eld College in 1927. USA at Harvard University, where he graduated This scholarship partly related to him being a MS in 1933 and, based upon a geological survey of talented musician (piano, taught by his mother, the Organ Mountains for the New Mexico Bureau and organ, with lessons given by Canon Culley at of Mines, SD in 1935. During this period, he also Durham Cathedral) and he was the College chapel travelled widely in North America and established organist. many important economic geology and scientic Having gone up to the University to read contacts, especially concerning Mississippi Valley- Honours Chemistry, Dunham became captivated type and related mineralization. PROFESSOR SIR KINGSLEY DUNHAM, 1910^2001
Returning to the UK in 1935, Dunham obtained building and, fostered by his commanding leader- appointment as a Geologist with the Geological ship, the Geology Department expanded with a Survey of Great Britain, becoming a Principal steady increase in undergraduateand postgraduate Geologist and Head of the Petrographic students, while new elds were developed, Department in 1946, with designation as Chief especially in geophysics and engineering Petrographer in 1948. The early part of this period geology respectively headed by Martin Bott and involved eld seasons mapping the Old Red Peter Attewell. An outstanding research project, Sandstone in the Chepstow district of Gwent and funded and conducted under his direction, in investigating, with Colin Rose, the Furness collaboration with Bott and others, was that district hematite eld of south Cumbria. He was involving the Rookhope deep borehole to then assigned during World War II, when he was investigate the source of the mineralization in also a Major in the Home Guard, to work in the the Alston Block section of the Northern Pennine Pennines where his particular responsibility was Ore eld. the encouragement of zinc ore, uorspar and Resultant upon an exceptional air for admin- barytes production. An immediate result of this istration, he was much in demand for University was the establishment of a 1,000 ton/day mill at committee work, including serving as Sub- Nenthead, Cumbria, to recover zinc ore from old Warden of the Durham Colleges from 1959 to mine dumps. 1961. To the considerable bene t of the Geology This war-time activity, coupled with previous Department and its students, his reputation and research, comprised the basis for publication widespread connections within the minerals during 1948 of his classic memoir Geology of industry also resulted in him being retained to the Northern Pennine Oreeld, Volume 1, act as a consultant. In this capacity, he became a followed in 1952 by a fourth edition of the prodigious traveller, advising on mines and Fluorspar memoir, both of which gave impetus to prospects widely at home and abroad for various sustained mineral development throughout the companies, including Consolidated Gold Fields, Pennines, notably with respect to uorspar, but Consolidated Mining & Smelting Company of also barytes, witherite and by-product lead ore. In Canada, Imperial Chemical Industries, Iraq fact, he rmly established a lifetime as a proli c Petroleum, John Taylor & Sons and Laporte author and contributor to literature while with the Industries. Geological Survey, and the foundations of much His gift for administration additionally led to of his scientic innovation can be traced to the him being recruited to outside bodies and, in view work he did during this period. of its impact on moulding his subsequent career, it His work centred on economic geology, but is pertinent to note that he was one of the two with rami cations into a wide variety of elds, geologists on the 1963 Brundrett Committee, including petrology and sedimentology, because which considered the future of the Overseas the solution of a geological problem for him had Geological Surveys. This Committee made a not only to be interesting but also useful. This proposal which was to have a major impact on inclination was manifested by him organizing and the future role and activities of what is now leading during 1948, with Jim Taylor, the named the British Geological Survey, with this economic geology excursions of the 18th involving amalgamation of the Overseas International Geological Congress, at which he Geological Surveys, the Geological Survey of also played the music of Jeremiah Clarke and Great Britain and the Geological Museum into a others on the organ for the opening and closing new Institute of Geological Sciences within the sessions held in the Royal Albert Hall. Natural Environment Research Council. In 1950 Dunham returned to Durham as In 1967, after making the dif cult decision on Professor of Geology in succession to Lawrence whether or not to remain in Durham, Dunham Wager. Not least since it was a time of university succeeded Sir James Stubble eld as Director of expansion, he greatly enjoyed academic life, the Institute. This coincided with a period of particularly the contact with young and fertile major Government support for expansion in minds, with which he practised the philosophy of environmental science research and, vitally producing, at the rst-degree stage, all-round in uenced by him, the Institute almost doubled geologists strongly supported by eld studies, in staff size to just over 1,000, as well as rather than specialists. He planned and supervised broadening its scope of capabilities in geochem- the construction of a new geology/chemistry istry, geophysics, economic geology and conti-
692 PROFESSOR SIR KINGSLEY DUNHAM, 1910^2001 nental shelf studies. Such activity embraced a undiminished authoritative and self-assured large increase in eld investigation programmes, manner. One unforgettable example of this was both at home and abroad, and he made a point of in 1996 when, as President of all three Probus visiting his staff, even in the remotest locations. clubs in Durham, he unerringly presented their Sir Moreover, the Geological Museum bene ted from Kingsley Dunham Lecture himself, based on his his guidance, with substantial modernization experiences as Foreign Secretary of the Royal manifested in the opening of The Story of the Society and entitled An Ambassador for Science, Earth exhibition during 1972 by Her Majesty The using slides selected and organized with the visual Queen, who had knighted Sir Kingsley earlier in assistance of Tony Johnson, his long-standing the year. neighbour, friend and research collaborator. Expansion of the Institute also required the He was greatly admired and respected, variously provision of additional accommodation. This was as an educator, administrator and policy-maker, effected by the development of a new site in throughout the geological and scienti c world. Edinburgh, named Murchison House, and he was This resulted in him being elected in 1955 as a responsible for initiating the action which resulted Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded its Royal in acquisition of the property at Keyworth, near Medal in 1970 while, as its Foreign Secretary and a Nottingham, where the extensive headquarters of Vice President from 1971 to 1976, he became the the British Geological Survey have been subse- rst geologist to hold of ce in the Society since Sir quently established. Indeed, it was a tting tribute Archibald Geikie during the early 1900s. He took to his vision and input that in 1990 these part in or led many Royal Society delegations to headquarters were named the Kingsley Dunham foreign countries, including two to the Soviet Centre, with the ceremony taking place shortly Union and one to the People’s Republic of China, after appointment as the BGS Director of one of each of which played signi cant parts in breaching his former Durham students, Peter Cook. scientic barriers. Sir Kingsley retired during 1975 from the BGS Sir Kingsley’s unique professional standing and returned to his alma mater, where he pursued was also marked by other awards and honours far an agreeable life as Emeritus Professor, conti- too numerous to record in detail here. nuing with his research and publication work. Of Nevertheless, it is appropriate to note speci cally especial note in this context is production in 1985 that, after emphasizing his credentials by a 1933 of the memoir Geology of the Northern Pennine paper in American Mineralogist on a new mineral, Ore eld, Volume 2, in co-authorship with Albert tilleyite, in collaboration with Esper Larsen Jr, he Wilson, another of his former Durham students became a Member of the Mineralogical Society in and a senior BGS staff member. In addition, 1938 and was President for 1976-78 during its Volume 1 of the memoir was completely revised centenary year. This followed successively being by him and a second edition published in 1990. President of the Yorkshire Geological Society, the Other pleasures of these years included meeting Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, the former colleagues and students, with a highlight Geological Society, the International Union of event to honour him and celebrate his seventy- Geological Sciences and the British Association fth birthday being the three-day Dunham- for the Advancement of Science. In addition, he Durham Reunion 1985, at which a large gathering variously chaired the meeting that led to presented a galaxy of papers. He also collaborated formation of the EEC’s European Science with the Open University, both as a consultant for Foundation and was Chairman of the Council the Natural Resources course and as a guide to for Environmental Science and Engineering as Durham Cathedral for summer schools resident at well as the Board of the International Geological the University. Correlation Programme. By 1990 his already impaired sight was failing He married in 1936 Margaret Young, of rapidly and he eventually had to give up writing, Choppington, Northumberland, and St Mary’s but other interests continued, including gardening College, Durham, who was a constant companion and music. As a ne sight-reader but with a and tower of strength in all his endeavours. Their regretted low memory store of music, the latter only child, Ansel Charles, who was Professor of was salved when blind by listening to recordings Geology at Hull and then Leicester, predeceased as well as attending performances in Durham his parents due to cancer in 1998. This tragedy Cathedral and Hat eld College. He also continued was followed by further sadness later in the year to give talks entirely from memory in his with the death of Lady Dunham after a long and
693 ANDREW F. SEAGER,1920 ^2000 progressively debilitating illness, during which, ful lled life at a funeral service on 11 April 2001 with devoted support, she bravely gave the in Durham Cathedral, followed by a reception in semblance to most people of a normal life for Hat eld College, for both of which establishments many years. he maintained great affection in all their aspects As be tted Sir Kingsley, a large congregation to the very end. commemorated with thanksgiving his remarkably BRIAN L. HODGE
Andrew F. Seager,1920^2000
Andrew Ford Seager was born in west London in writing-up were done simultaneously with the 1920. His mother was a music teacher and his preparation of courses and his baptism in teaching father a solicitor. He attended St Paul’s School undergraduates. Developing the themes of his PhD and, in 1939, went on to read geology at King’s work, his subsequent publications were concerned College, London. At the outbreak of the second mainly with the signicance of morphological and world war, however, King’s was evacuated to especially surface features of minerals, including the Bristol University and it was there that he spent baryte group, cerussite, hematite, magnetite, pyrite his undergraduateyears. He suffered from asthma, and galena. In a later series of publications he particularly as a child. One result of this handicap described and discussed the paragenesisof a suite of was that in his childhood he spent more than zeolites developed in metabasites and serpentinites average time in his local library where he found of the Lizard, Cornwall and, with colleagues at and read L.J. Spencer’s The World’s Minerals. It Birkbeck and Cambridge, determined and discussed was this chance discovery which kindled his the age of the suite. He also published work on the lasting passion for mineralogy. space group of tetrahedral diamond and the On graduation, in 1942, he was drafted into a crystallography of sucrose. He was promoted branch of Operational Research attached to Fighter rapidly, achieving a readership in mineralogy in Command and worked on armaments at Stanmore. 1963 and became head of the geology departmentin After the war, rather than stay in Operational 1970. Under his guidance the department moved to Research, he took up the post of Assistant Lecturer new premises and enjoyed a period of sustained in the geology department at Birkbeck College and prosperity. remained there happily for the rest of his He played a full part in the work of the professional life. He gained his PhD in 1953 for a Mineralogical Society which he joined in 1943: thesis on ‘The relation of habit to structure and he became a member of the Applied Mineralogy, growth in crystals’, the work for which and the Clay Minerals, and Geochemistry Groups; he was
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