Herbert Harold Read Explained

Herbert Harold Read
Honorific Suffix:FRS
Birth Date:17 December 1889
Fields:Geology
Workplaces:British Geological Survey
University of Liverpool
Imperial College, London
Alma Mater:University of London
Thesis1 Title:and
Thesis2 Title:)-->
Thesis1 Url:and
Thesis2 Url:)-->
Thesis1 Year:and
Thesis2 Year:)-->
Doctoral Students:Janet Vida Watson
John Sutton
Derek Flinn
Awards:Fellow of the Royal Society (1939)
Wollaston Medal (1952)
Royal Medal (1963)
Penrose Medal (1967)
Spouse:Edith Browning
Partners:)-->

Herbert Harold Read FRS,[1] FRSE, FGS, (17 December 1889, in Whitstable  - 29 March 1970)[2] [3] was a British geologist and Professor of Geology at Imperial College.[2] From 1947-1948 he was president of the Geological Society.[2]

Life

He was born at Whitstable in Kent on 17 December 1889 the son of Herbert Read, a dairy farmer, and his wife, Caroline Mary Kearn. He attended St Alphege Church School in Whitstable then Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury. He then studied Sciences at the University of London, graduating BSc in 1911.

In the First World War he served in the Royal Fusiliers seeing active service on the Somme and at Gallipoli. He was invalided out of service in 1917 and returned to HM Geological Survey (Scottish section), where he had begun briefly in 1914. He stayed with the survey until 1931.[4]

In 1927 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were John Horne, Sir John Smith Flett, Murray Macgregor and Sir Edward Battersby Bailey. From 1931 to 1939 he was Professor of Geology at Liverpool University.[5]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1939[2] and won its Royal Medal in 1963 for "outstanding contributions to the understanding of the processes of rock metamorphism and the origins of granite".[2] [6] He also was awarded the Bigsby Medal in 1935, the Wollaston Medal in 1952 and the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America in 1967.[2] He served as Dean of the Royal School of Mines from 1943-45.[7]

He was Chairman of the Scientific Committee and member of the Committee of Management of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1955–58.The Read Mountains in the Shackleton Range of Antarctica are named after him.

He died on 29 March 1970. In 1917 he had married Edith Browning.

Publications

Quotes

"The best geologist is he who has seen the most rocks." (H. H. Read, 1940)[8]

Notes and References

  1. Sutton . J. . 10.1098/rsbm.1970.0020 . Herbert Harold Read. 1889-1970 . . 16 . 479–497. 1970 . free .
  2. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . 10.1093/ref:odnb/35696 . 2004 .
  3. ‘READ, Herbert Harold’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 accessed 1 March 2009
  4. Book: Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002. July 2006. The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 0-902-198-84-X. 9 February 2018. 4 March 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf. dead.
  5. Book: Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002. July 2006. The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 0-902-198-84-X. 9 February 2018. 4 March 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf. dead.
  6. Web site: Royal archive winners 1989 - 1950. Awards, medals and prize lectures. Royal Society. 2009-02-28.
  7. Book: Hannah, Gay. History Of Imperial College London, 1907-2007. 752.
  8. Book: Young, Davis A. . Mind over magma: the story of igneous petrology . Princeton University Press . Princeton, N.J . 2003 . 50 . 0-691-10279-1 .