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To promote a wider interest in the science of geology through
organised lectures, field excursions and social activities.
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The Dating Game
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| Arthur
Holmes probably influenced more people to study geology than any other
person. His “Principles of Physical Geology” was the text book which
educated generations of geologists and stretched their intellects and
imaginations. It certainly did mine. His advocacy of continental drift
and, especially, his ideas on mantle convection ensured that the
revolution caused by the discovery of sea-floor spreading, was
accepted with little controversy on this side of the Atlantic. This book, written by a Bristol graduate, is his biography. The emphasis is on his efforts to find the age of the Earth. But it could have been about other fundamental aspects of geology - mantle convection, isotope geochemistry - which he pioneered. Arthur Holmes, despite being Geology Prof. at Edinburgh, did not have a geology degree. He was a physicist who was educated at the time when all the pioneering work on atomic physics was being done. He graduated at what later became Imperial College and stayed on to do research. The story of his struggles to become an academic show how difficult someone of his background - his father was a shop assistant in Gateshead - had in getting an academic job. This despite his brilliance. He failed to get a permanent job as an “assistant of the second class in the Department of Minerals” at the British Museum. For the £150 per year the candidate had to be nominated by a trustee (the Archbishop of Canterbury in his case). Pass exams in Advanced Mathematics, Optical Crystallography, Inorganic Chemistry, English Composition. Translate from 3 of French, German, Latin or Greek. And be free from physical defect or disease. And have a character such as to qualify him for public employment. Holmes’ Latin let him down, although he was first in the Mineralogy section. So as he needed to earn some money he went off with a mining company to look for minerals in Mozambique. Nothing economic was found but he did catch malaria and paradoxically this may have saved his life. He was passed as unfit for the First World War and spent the war looking for Potash to replace the pre-war German sources. At war’s end he was married, with a child, the author of 3 books, a DSc and the possessor of a growing reputation in age dating. But he was only a £150 a year demonstrator at Imperial. So once more he went overseas to earn a living. This time to Burma to work for an oil company which turned out to be not quite honest. So in 1922 he was back in the UK having done a lot of geology, was owed a years salary and jobless. Also his son had died in Burma. But in 1924, after having started as a “Trader in Oriental Crafts”, he managed to get the job of Reader in (and only member of) the Geology Department at Durham University. To graduate, students had to sit an exam in scripture knowledge, set by the Bishop, but marked by the students Head of Department. When the question was “What importance do you attach to the minor prophets?” and a student answered “None”, Holmes gave him full marks! This because the student had answered the question set! Then, on an excursion to Ardnamurchan in 1931, an affair with Doris Reynolds began. She was a lecturer at University College, London, and one of the few women in geology. In 1933 Durham decided to employ a lecturer in geology and Doris was chosen. Tongues began to wag but before scandal erupted, Holmes’ wife died, and he married Doris. Then, during the war, Arthur Holmes’ textbook was published, to instant success. Its success was due to his style - “think of the most stupid student you have ever had, then think how you would explain the subject to him.”
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