Picture relating to the career of Tom Eastwood

BGS image ID: P832327

Tom Eastwood (1888-1970) joined the Geological Survey in 1911 and retired in 1949. The sketches of the other geologists are (top, left to right) Frederick Murray Trotter, Sydney Ewart Hollingworth (bottom, left to right) William Colin Campbell Rose, Francis Brian Awburn Welch, Kingsley Charles Dunham.

Andrew L Morrison

Sir Roderick Murchison's medals



BGS image ID: P582068

These medals were awarded to Sir Roderick Murchison (1792-1871). Having served in the army during the Napoleonic wars he later became intersted in geology. He was elected President of the Geological Society in 1831 and succeeded Henry De la Beche as Director of the Geological Survey in 1855.

The medals include the St Ann Cross, Russia; The Dannebrog, Denmark; St Ann Star, Russia; The Crown, Italy; St Stanislaus Cross, Russia; Pennisula Medal; Order of the Bath, UK; St Stanislaus Star, Russia; The Rose, Brasil and The Polar Star, Sweden.

Andrew L Morrison

Hercules and his fig leaf

  

BGS image ID: P807851

This picture shows the fig leaf that used to be part of the statue of Hercules that is now at BGS Keyworth. The statue was installed in the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street , London in 1851. The story goes that the wife of the then Director of the Geological Survey and Museum, Archibald Geikie, objected to Hercules’s nudity. This resulted in the statue’s genitals being removed and a fig leaf being attached in 1883.


BGS image ID: P685329

The genitals were stored in a velvet-lined mahogany box for over 90 years. In 1977 the genitals were reattached and the fig leaf was put in the mahogany box. In 1982 Hercules was moved to Keyworth.
 

BGS image ID: P808617

 Andrew L Morrison

Act of Parliament, 1845



BGS image ID: P815508

This Act of Parliament was to "facilitate the completion of a Geological Survey of Great Britain and Ireland". It was passed 10 years after the Geological Survey had first come in to existence and put it on a much firmer footing. It is unlikely that the act's originators could have envisaged that the Survey would still be in existence 168 years later or the increased range of tasks that it would be involved in.

Andrew L Morrison 

The Bandits' Lair - the 'Desperadoes' of the Geological Survey of Scotland, 1885

BGS image ID: P008715

The Bandits' Lair. The names of those desperadoes are (left to right), back row - J.B. Hill, L.W. Hinxman, J. Horne, G. Barrow. Front row (left to right), J. Linn, B.N. Peach, H. Miller, W. Gunn. 

The 'Bandits' Lair' almost certainly dates from 1885, probably in the Spring of that year. Geikie instructed the newly recruited members of the Scottish staff that had been mapping in northern England previously to attend a 2-3 day trip/workshop in the NW Highlands with Peach and Horne. This is recorded in the Summary of Progress for 1885 and confirmed by Barrow notes on a later manuscript. Barrow, Clough, Dakyns, Gunn and Miller moved to the Scottish Office in 1884. Hinxman and Cadell were recruited in 1883. The photo was probably taken in Sutherland as they visited Loch Eriboll and the Scourie area. The two people missing are Dakyns and Cadell. It is suspected that Cadell was the photographer. The photo cannot be later as there is no recorded instance of the same body of people being in the field together subsequently. Also Linn became ill soon after and did little field work. [Text, John Mendum]

Bob McIntosh

Portrait of Henry De la Beche

BGS image ID: P718393

This portrait, on enamel, was painted by Henry Pierce  Bone (1779-1855) who was the son of noted enamel painter Henry Bone. A note on the back of the frame says that Bone presented it to the Museum of Practical Geology.

Henry Thomas De la Beche was born on 10 February 1796. He spent much of his early life at Lyme Regis and developed an interest in geology. He was responsible for the creation of the Geological Survey (then called the Ordnance Geological Survey) in 1835 and he remained Director up to his death on 13 April 1855. He was knighted in 1848.

Andrew L Morrison

Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, first floor

BGS image: P640479

The Survey had a museum from as early as 1841 at Craig’s Court, London, known as the Museum of Economic Geology. Its name reflects the nature of the collections. It housed a large number of specimens of building stones collected by the Commissioners appointed to find the most suitable stone for the new Houses of Parliament, as well as collections of cements, tiles, pottery and other man-made goods from natural stone materials. The collections and the Geological Survey soon outgrew Craig’s Court and a new Museum, the Museum of Practical Geology, was opened in Jermyn Street, London with a grand ceremony on 12th May 1851. The entrance was by all accounts very gloomy, and it led via stairs to the galleries shown in the picture with their neatly stacked shelves of rocks, minerals, ores, gems, fossils and economic exhibits. The museum also had a tiered lecture theatre reputedly capable of holding as many as six hundred people, where regular ‘penny lectures’ were given. The museum had a long life, eventually being replaced by the Geological Museum in Exhibition Road in 1935.

Bob McIntosh