The Library of the Geological Society of London is holding a special event to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War.
On 10 July 2014, we will be restaging the lecture, ‘Geology at the Western Front’, which was originally given by Lt Col T W E David, FGS, on 26 February 1919 before his return to Australia to be officially demobilised after serving in the First World War. Until recently the contents of the lecture were unknown and it was thought that the War Office had denied permission for it to be published. A few months ago, however, the handwritten notes to David’s lecture were rediscovered tucked into a box in the Library.
The extraordinary Tannatt William Edgeworth David (1858-1934), whose full career had already seen him studying under John Ruskin and Joseph Prestwich in the 1870s, setting up the new School of Mines at the University of Sydney in the 1890s and accompanying Ernest Shackleton to the magnetic South Pole as part of the British Antartic Expedition of 1907-1909, had convinced the Australian government to establish a corps of geologists and miners for military use in the First World War. On its formal establishment in September 1915, David received his commission as Major at the mature age of 57 years, one of the oldest men to volunteer for the Allies. Travelling to France and the Western Front in February 1916 he provided invaluable advice to troops on ground water and the positioning and design of trenches and tunnels. Despite seriously injuring himself falling 24 metres down a well in the autumn of 1916, David continued his war service as geologist to the British Expeditionary Force, collaborating with his British counterpart William Bernard Robinson King (1889-1963), who was essentially the first officially appointed British military geologist and coincidentally served the same function in WW2.
The restaged lecture will be delivered by Colonel Edward P. F. Rose, the Society’s 2014 Sue Tyler Friedman Medallist, at 6.30pm. As was the custom for Ordinary Meetings during the First World War, tea will be served half an hour before.
Tickets for this special evening cost £5 and spaces are limited to 40 people. See: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/GSL-Library-14-Geology-at-the-Western-Front or contact [log in to unmask] to book a place.
Contact the list owner for assistance at [log in to unmask]
For information about joining, leaving and suspending mail (eg during a holiday) see the list website at
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=archives-nra
|