Geology

Beginnings, 1770 to 1871

GeoScience was first taught in Edinburgh under the title of Natural History. Professors included Robert Ramsay, John Walker (1731-1803) and Robert Jameson (1774-1854) (who held the Chair for fifty years. When George Allman (1812-1898) was about to retire, the University received a letter from Roderick Murchison, Director of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, proposing that the Chair of Natural History to be divided, in order to create a separate Chair of Geology. To this end he offered to provide an endowment of £6,000

The next day, the University received a further letter from Murchison, in which he added that the endowment was conditional on him being the person to nominate the new Chair of Geology. The University then wrote to the Treasury asking for a grant of £200 per annum to make the Chair viable. The Treasury replied that they were prepared to provide this sum on condition that Murchison's clause regarding nomination be deleted.

In March 1871, Archibald Geikie presented his commission to the Senatus Academicus, as the holder of the first Regius Chair of Geology. At that time Archibald Geikie was the President of the Edinburgh Geological Society and, coincidentally, Sir Roderick Murchison was its patron. Undoubtedly, whatever the Treasury said, Murchison got his own way. Sir Archibald Geikie was succeeded by his younger brother James Geikie in 1882.

Regius Chairs have included:

   Thomas Jehu, 1914 - 1943
   Arthur Holmes, 1943 - 1956
   Sir Frederick Stewart, 1956 - 1986
   Geoffrey Boulton, 1986 - 2008
   Dick Kroon, 2008 - the present

Sources

• A History of the School of GeoSciences (accessed 17 June 2014)