Stalag VIII B Lamsdorf (now Lambinowice in Silesia) also known as Kommando E562, became a part of the Auschwitz/Monowitz concentration camp complex. It was opened in 1939 to house Polish prisoners from the German September 1939 offensive. Later approximately 100,000 prisoners from Australia, Belgium, Great Britain, Canada, France, Greece, New Zealand, Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and the United States passed through this camp. In 1941 a separate camp, Stalag VIII-F was set up close by to house the Soviet prisoners. In 1943, the Lamsdorf camp was split up, and many of the prisoners (and Arbeitskommandos) were transferred to two new base camps Stalag VIII-C Sagan and Stalag VIII-D Teschen (modern Èeský Tìšín). The base camp at Lamsdorf was renumbered Stalag 344. The Soviet Army reached the camp 17 March 1945.
Interradio AG was a holding company comprising numerous German-owned foreign broadcasting stations and was owned in equal share by the Nazi Foreign Affairs Department and the Propaganda Ministry. On 22 October 1941 it was merged with the Nazi radio monitoring service 'Seehaus' (named after the building in Berlin where it was located).
The NS Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude, the National Socialist Organisation Strength through Joy, came under the aegis of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, the national German labour organization. All members of the DAF were also members of the KdF, and as basically any worker was a part of the DAF, so too were they in the Kraft durch Freude. The KdF was essentially designed for the purpose of providing organised leisure for the German work force. The DAF calculated that the work year contained 8,760 hours of which only 2,100 were spent working, 2,920 hours spent sleeping, leaving 3,740 hours of free time. Thus the driving concept behind the KdF was organised 'relaxation for the collection of strength for more work.'
The KdF strived to achieve this goal of organised leisure by providing activities such as trips, cruises, concerts, and cultural activities for German workers. These events were specifically directed towards the working class, and it was through the KdF that the NSDAP hoped to bring to the 'common man' the pleasures once reserved only for the rich.
The Brussels Relief Committee was an organisation set up by the American Government to provide food aid to the people of Brussels during World War Two. Members include Mr Vhitlock, Honorary President and Millard K Shaler.
The NSDAP/AO was the Foreign Organisation of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). The party members who lived outside the German Reich were pooled in this special NSDAP department. On May 1 1931 the new organisational unit was founded on the initiative of Reich Organisation Leader (Reichsorganisationsleiter) Gregor Strasser and its management was assigned to Dr Hans Nieland. But Nieland resigned from office already on May 8, 1933, because he had become head of the Hamburg police authorities in the meantime and later on a member of the Hamburg provincial government. Ernst Wilhelm Bohle was appointed director of the 'AO', that served as 43rd Gau of the NSDAP.
NSDAP Local Groups (Ortsgruppen) comprised 25 party comrades at least, so called Stützpunkte (bases) had 5 members or more. Furthermore, big Local Groups could be partitioned into Blocs (Blöcke).
Ideological training and uniform orientation of all party members in the interest of the German nation were the principal tasks of NSDAP/AO. Only Imperial Germans (Reichsdeutsche) with a German passport could become members of the AO. Persons of German descent, so called ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche), who possessed the nationality of the country in which they lived, were refused access to the Nazi Party.
Jüdische Nachrichten (Jewish News), was founded by the Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (Swiss Association of Jewish Communities), Zürich, as its press office in 1936, to confront Nazism but also to address growing anti-semitism in Switzerland. To this end it produced news bulletins in German and French and distributed them to numerous editorial offices throughout Switzerland.
Under the leadership of Dr. Benjamin Sagalowitz (1938-1964) JUNA amassed a large archive of documentation concerning the Holocaust and the fate of Jewish refugees and other related subjects. Parts of this archive were used to create the three dossiers in this collection.
Hechaluz, was an umbrella organisation founded in 1917 to propagate the settlement of Jews from the Diaspora to Kibbutzim in Palestine.
The Laterndl theatre opened on 21 June 1939 at the address of the Austrian Centre, 126 Westbourne Terrace. It was conceived of as a Kleinkunstbühne. Kleinkunst was a term created in the 1930s for a type of anti-Nazi cabaret. It is described as being at the serious end of the comic market, and whilst it included many of the elements common to cabaret, it didn't include the more frivolous and bohemian.
Martin Miller was responsible for production as well as being one of the main character actors. The writers were Franz Hartl, Hugo Königsgarten, Rudolf Spitz, and Hans Weigel. Kurt Manschinger dealt with the music, décor was by Carl Josefovics and costumes by Käthe Berl. The actors were Lona Cross, Greta Hartwig, Willy Kennedy, Jaro Klüger, Fritz Schrecker, Sylvia Steiner and Marianne Walla.
The theatre moved to 153 Finchley Road and then to 69 Eton Avenue by November 1941. One of the most famous achievements associated with 'das Laterndl' was the Martin Miller's spoof Hitler broadcast on April Fools' Day, 1940, in which Hitler claimed that Columbus had discovered America with the aid of German science, giving Germany territorial claim. A text of the speech is included in this collection.
The Reischsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Organisation of German Jews) came into being in February 1939 and, as far as its leadership and basic purposes was concerned, was a continuation of its predecessor, the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland. As a result of the intensification of the Third Reich's anti-semitic policies, its aims were increasingly linked to Jewish survival, and in particular, emigration. It was put under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, in practice the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office). It was the only organisation in Germany dealing with Jewish survival until its liquidation in July 1943 when its leaders, Leo Baeck and Paul Eppstein were deported to Theresienstadt.
The Cohn and Baer families were Berlin Jews during the Third Reich.
Otto Löwenstein was Jewish but his wife was not. He died in prison, 1938, though it is not known why he was sent there.
Charlotte Lewin was born in Breslau in 1892. She went to school there and passed an examination to become a teacher of English and French in 1912. Soon afterwards she spent 18 months in England in order to improve her English. On her return to Breslau she worked as a secretary at the American Consulate until 1917 when diplomatic relations with the USA were broken. After a short period working as a librarian at the Breslau municipal library she went on to work in the archives and library at Breslau University Department of Economics.
She took over the running of her father's textile business along with an associate in 1923, her father having died in 1921. During this time she continued to teach and study the English language.
In October 1936 she was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment for making defamatory comments about Goebbels after the latter had come to Breslau to give a lecture. After her release 7 months later she began to make plans to leave Germany. She arrived in England in March 1938. In London and later Darlington she worked for HM Forces Education Department as a German language teacher.
Kurt Josef Waldheim was born 1918; served in the Wehrmacht, 1941-1945; squad leader, Eastern Front, 1941; interpreter and liaison officer with the Italian 5th division (Pusteria), Apr-May 1942; O2 officer (communications) with the Kampfgruppe West Bosnia, Jun-Aug 1942; interpreter with the liaison staff attached to the 9th Italian Army in Tirana, early summer 1942; O1 officer in the German liaison staff with the 11th Italian Army and in the staff of the Army Group South Greece in Jul-Oct 1943; O3 officer on the staff of Army Group E in Arksali, Mitrovica and Sarajevo, Oct 1943-Feb 1945; Austrian diplomatic service, 1945-1972; Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1972-1981; President of Austria, 1986-1992; died 2007.
In early 1986 when Waldheim's candidacy for the office of Federal President of Austria was made known his service as a Wehrmacht intelligence officer during World War Two caused an international controversy. A Thames Television documentary was made on Kurt Waldheim's role during the War. The programme takes the form of a commission of enquiry presided over by 5 distinguished European judges in which evidence of Waldheim's wartime duties and activities is subjected to scrutiny by lawyers. The object of the exercise is to ascertain whether or not Waldheim should be answerable to charges of certain war crimes. Testimony is taken from a number of historians and lawyers and eyewitnesses. The unanimous conclusion of the commission is that Waldheim should not have to answer charges for war crimes.
Michael Zylberberg was born in Plotsk, Poland, 1906, into a rabbinical family. He qualified to teach Hebraic history and literature in Warsaw and proceeded to work in a number of schools there, 1933-1939. After the outbreak of World War Two he was active in the Warsaw ghetto organising illegal schools for thousands of homeless children. After the Warsaw ghetto rising in 1943 he managed to escape to the Aryan side of Warsaw, where he lived for 2 years passing off as a Christian.
Years after the end of the war he was contacted by someone who had discovered his manuscript diary and notes. He published his diary under the title A Warsaw Diary in 1969. He also contributed many articles and book reviews on the subject of the Holocaust to the Jewish Chronicle.
He became secretary of the British section of the Yivo Institute, and was a member of the Association of Jewish Journalists and of the World Jewish Congress. He died in 1971.
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) grew from organisations founded in 1881 to assist Jewish migrants arriving at Ellis Island, USA. During World War Two HIAS provided immigration and refugee services. After the war, HIAS was instrumental in evacuating the displaced persons camps and aiding in the resettlement of some 150,000 people in 330 U.S. communities, as well as Canada, Australia and South America. More recently, since the mid-70s, HIAS has helped more than 300,000 Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union and its successor states escape persecution and rebuild new lives in the United States. As the migration arm of the organised American Jewish community, HIAS also advocates on behalf of refugees and migrants on the international, national and community level.
These three unrelated documents are evidence of anti-Semitic measures taken by the Nazis.
Louis Löwenthal, was a Jewish travelling salesman, in Berlin and other locations in Germany.
Reports by Hungarian Foreign Office officials of meetings and discussions with British foreign office officials and secret service agents shed some light on the background to relations between the two countries immediately before and during World War Two.
Please contact the Archive for further information.
Cornelius Humphreys, was the son of David Humphreys, of Llanelli, Camarthen. He matriculated at Jesus College Oxford, 1743, aged 32. In 1752, he was appointed Rector of St Mary, Somerset, London. It is thought that he was Chaplain at on of the Chapels of the Tower of London. A transcript of his burial monument states that he was a minister of this (unidentified) chapel for thirty years, [1740-1770]. He married Agnes, who died 1789 aged 69.
The Tower of London was originally constructed in the 11th century as a fortress and has remained in periodic use particularly during times of civil disorder, as well as being a royal residence.
The Tower served several important administrative functions, housing the Privy Wardrobe, one of the departments of the Royal Household, until the mid 15th century; the Royal Mint until 1812; and the Public Record Office until the 1850s. It had an important military function, not only was it the most important arsenal in the kingdom, but also the home of the Board of Ordnance, the government department responsible for the supply of munitions and equipment to the army and navy, until its abolition in 1855.
The Tower was also used as a state prison up until the mid 17th century, and then again during the First and Second World Wars. It is particularly well known as the place of execution of two Queens of England, Anne Boleyn (1535) and Catherine Howard (1542). It was also the original home of the Royal Observatory (before it moved to Greenwich), and the King's Menagerie (the last of the animals were relocated to London Zoo in 1834). It is currently the repository of the Crown Jewels.
At its height the Tower was a thriving community under the control of the Constable and his Lieutenant. It had a large temporary population made up of the officers and workers of the Board of Ordnance and the Royal Mint, but also a significant permanent population, including the military garrison and the yeomen warders, and their families. The Tower also had its own doctor, hospital, and chapel.
The Tower was first opened to the public in 1660, but its development as a visitor attraction dates to the mid 19th century. It was then that the first official guidebooks appeared, the Jewel House was opened to visitors, and the displays of the Tower Armouries (now the Royal Armouries), where placed on a more academic basis.
The collection was collated by Colin McArthur during the course of business of Half-Brick Images, his commercial picture business. McArthur was born in 1934, and was formerly Head of Distribution at the British Film Institute. Now a freelance teacher and writer, especially on Hollywood cinema, British television and Scottish culture, he is also a lecturer in the Visual and Cultural Media Department of Middlesex University.
Collected by Art and Design Learning Resources, Middlesex Polytechnic.
The Society of Radiographers was founded in 1920 at the instigation of radiologists Albert Forder, and Dr Robert Knox, of King's College Hospital. Forder, Knox along with Dr Walmsley and Mr Blackhall formed a sub-committee to draft the rules for the admission of members. Membership was open to applicants who had been actively and continually employed for not less than ten years in the electro-therapeutic department or the X-ray department of a hospital or institution approve by the Council. In 1921, examinations were introduced for entry to membership, and a syllabus developed. There were 67 members in 1921, which rose to 164 by 1923.
In 1930, a branch of the Society was formed in South Africa, and established a pattern of branch formation with local committee management that was propagated in the UK during the 1930s.The Scottish Radiographic Society was formed in 1927 became a branch of the Society in 1936, the South West Branch in 1937, the North West in 1942, the Midland and the North East in 1943. The first Annual Conference of the Society was held in Bath 1947.
The society was active in the area of training for members in the context of a move towards national registration of auxiliary medical professions. In 1932 a number of hospitals were inspected and officially recognised a training schools - including Guy's, King's College, The Royal Northern and the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth in London, to which were added the Royal Infirmary and the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, the Middlesex Hospital, London, St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, and the General Infirmary, Johannesburg, were added in 1934. The Board of Medical Auxiliaries was established for professional registration purposes in 1937. The Society's professional journal began in 1935, a Benevolent Fund was set up in 1936, and the first Fellowship examinations were held in 1937. It was also concerned with the employment conditions for radiographers, and in the late 1930s surveyed 35 county councils concerning salaries and terms of employment for radiographers.
During World War 2, the Society's Office was moved to Staplehurst, Kent, and the Society was asked to provide training for the Emergency Medical Service and a scheme to train assistants to qualified radiographers was devised. Radiography was designated a reserved occupation in 1940 due to the staff shortage. Training and the status of the radiographer continued to be an issue during and after the War, but their main energies were directed to the formation of the National Health Service, was launched in 1948. In 1951, the Cope Report was published, which recommended the setting up of a statutory council to maintain registers of medical auxiliaries qualified for employment in the NHS. Statutory Registration took effect under the Professions Supplementary to Medicine Act, 1960, and was implemented in 1962 for radiographers.
During the 1970s, the Society concentrated its energies on education and industrial relations, as well as consolidating its financial position. The extension of training for radiographers from two to three years was raised, as was the incorporation of the developing area of nuclear medicine the in to the syllabus. The system of payment for radiographers for emergency work was addressed, and the serious concerns about the loss of members from the profession. There were over 6,500 members in 1970.
The 1970s also was increased branch activity and a number were restructured - the Wessex Sub-branch was granted full Branch status, the North-East sub-branch became the Northumbrian Branch, and new branches were formed - East Mercia, and Devon and Cornwall.
In 1976, it was proposed that the Society become registered as a trade union. This required some restructuring within the Society to form a new charitable company to hold the Society's assets and de-register the Society as a charity. This led to the formation of the College of Radiographers, Jan 1977 to take over the educational and professional responsibilities. In 1990, the Society became affiliated with the Trade Union Congress (TUC).
Membership of the Society reached 10,000 in 1982, and by 1995 stood at 13,500. In 1999, the structure of the Society was revised, and the branches abolished and replaced by eight new regions and national councils for Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
Society initially occupied premises at the headquarters of the British Institute of Radiology, Seymour Place, before moving in 1926 to the headquarters of the British Institute of Radiology at 32 Welbeck St. In 1968, the Society relocated to its own premises at 14 Upper Wimpole St, then as space demands increased purchased No 13 Upper Wimpole St where it moved in 1986. It has since occupied premises at Eversholt St, and is currently located in Mill Street, London.
The materials held here cover a wide variety of popular movements and issues in recent Latin American history from both internal (in the form of publications by local pressure groups, oppositional parties and governments) and external perspectives (through the reports and bulletins of NGOs, international conferences and foreign political parties). Inevitably (given the military governments, revolutionary movements and increasingly dominant neo-liberal economic policies which have marked this era in the continent's history) major topics include human rights, poverty, economic sovereignty and the condition of indigenous peoples, whilst the role of the United States in the hemisphere is also considered. Another aspect unique to Latin America is the large amount of material originating from Christian groups, many seeking to "exercise an option in favour of the poor" as promulgated by the II Vatican Council (1962-1965).
Following the CIA-backed military coup which removed the reformist government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 Guatemala endured thirty years of military rule, characterised by a tragic spiral of human rights abuses and the growth of guerilla insurgencies, both reinforcing the other. By 1982 the revolutionary groups had merged into the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and it was with this organisation that the civilian government elected in 1984 began negotiations in 1987. Despite various peace agreements and elections violence, abuse and poverty have remained endemic in Guatemala, with army leaders such as General Efrain Rios Montt still not having been brought to face trial. The majority of the materials held here date from the era of military rule and reflect the concerns of NGOs and local groups regarding human rights, poverty, the indigenous peoples, and the need for development. In addition there are materials from guerilla organisations and from Church groups, though the amount of actual party political material is limited.
Most of the materials held in this collection at present date from period surrounding the 1979 revolution, dealing with the decline and fall of the Somoza dynasty and the progress of the Sandinista government which replaced it. Thus there are reports from NGOs concerned with human rights abuses and economic and social conditions under the old regime alongside publications by and about opposition groups of both gradualist and revolutionary persuasions. Post-revolutionary materials detail the struggle against the US-backed Contra forces, the controversial elections of 1984 and the progress of the Central American Peace Plan. A large proportion of these are authored either by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) themselves or by organisations expressing solidarity with them, including some Church groups despite the antipathy of the Catholic heirerchy to the revolution. It must be noted that the overwhelming majority of the items held here are can be judged to be sympathetic towards the Sandinistas, reflecting inevitably the priorities of those who collected and housed the material.
Colombia has a long tradition of both democracy and political violence, and this remains true for the period covered by the bulk of this collection. Prior to 1974 the country had been ruled for sixteen years by a National Front which allowed for the alternation in power of the two main parties, the Partido Conservador Colombiano (Colombian Conservative Party, PCC) and the Partido Liberal Colombiano (Colombian Liberal Party, PLC). This period also saw the emergence of a variety of leftist guerrilla groups, most prominently the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia--FARC), the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional--ELN), the Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación--EPL) and the 19th of April Movement (Movimiento 19 de Abril--M-19). The transition to open competition between the Liberals and Conservatives in 1974 failed to end the insurgency, which was further complicated by the increasing involvement in the fighting of drugs cartels and right-wing paramilitary organisations, the latter with suspected links to both the cartels and the government. The 1970s and 1980s bore witness to a cycle of repression, violence, human rights abuses and failed peace talks. Of the parties actually involved in this conflict only the M-19 are represented here, along with other small radical socialist groups. However the causes and the consequences of the civil war, especially Colombia's gross economic inequalities and the catalogue of disappearances and human rights abuses, dominate the agendas of the NGOs, pressure groups, trade unions, Church bodies and international organisations whose publications are held here. As the country remains volatile it is likely that these issues will continue to predominate in any new material that is collected..
In 1968 the government of Fernando Belaúnde Terry and his Acción Popular party was deposed by a leftist military coup following a currency crisis and a continuing guerrilla war in the countryside. For the next twelve years a revolutionary' military government ran the country, although this period can be divided into two distinct phases. From 1968 to 1975 the new president, Juan Velasco Alvarado, instituted a programme of land reform, industrialisation and nationalisation which sought to end United States dominance over Peru as well as reduce the country's reliance on exports. However, once Velasco was replaced by Francisco Morales Bermudez Cerruti thesecond phase' of the revolution took the form of a move back towards the free market and the increasing embrace of new neo-liberal economic ideas. Civilian rule returned to the country in 1980, but economic problems continued and the emergence of new armed movements such as Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amuru led to the escalation of the so-called dirty war' and a consequent increase in accusations of human rights infractions. This collection holds materials published by the military government of the 1970s, many on land reform, as well of others from left-wing groups like the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) and the Vanguardia Revolucionaria. Also represented are peasant organisations and trades union federations, as well as independent studies of the Peruvian economic situation in the 1970s. As thedirty war' worsened in the 1980s an increasing number of publications, from both local political parties, church groups (such as the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America) and NGOs like Amnesty, are concerned with human rights in the country, while other items concentrate on the increasing problem of inflation. The majority of materials currently held in the collection date from the period between the 1968 coup and the election of Fujimori in 1992.
The majority of the materials held here date from the period between 1964 and 1982 when Bolivia, barring a brief period at the end of the 1970s, was under military rule. Despite the expansion of the mining sector and a period of economic growth lasting to the mid-1970s a succession of military leaders continued to use repressive tactics against opposition parties and unions, and following an economic downturn the human rights situation worsened, culminating in the cocaine cartel-financed presidency of General Luis García Meza (1980-1982) in which both paramilitary groups and tactics of arbitrary arrest, detention and torture were used to cow the opposition. This collection includes materials from unions (and union federations such as the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB)), political parties and internal and external human rights pressure groups, as well as government proclamations and pronouncements (mostly regarding the mining industry). There are also reports from groups working with indigenous peoples, as well as material produced by the Roman Catholic Church. The reaction of these organisations to the transition to civilian rule after 1982 and the country's consequent economic problems are also represented in the collection.
The majority of the materials held in this collection at present originate from the 1970s and 1980s, during which time Paraguay was effectively a military dictatorship under the rule of President Alfredo Stroessner. In the 1970s the country enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth, significantly fuelled by its joint participation with Brazil in the Itaipú hydroelectric plant, but this growth was to evaporate following the completion of the project in the 1980s, and the Stronato was eventually overthrown in a February 1989 coup. The limits of the aforementioned economic boom can be seen in the fact that the most prominent organisation represented here is the Misión de Amistad, the church group which through its various projects sought to alleviate poverty and faciliate rural development amongst Paraguay's peasantry and indigenous peoples. Furthermore the price paid by the country for its political stability was a record of repression which helped produce the growing international isolation that preceded Stroessner's deposition, and which is reflected here in a number of items issued by human rights organisations based abroad in Argentina and elsewhere.
Sir Shridrath Ramphal, born 1928; Career: Crown Counsel, British Guiana 1953-54; Asst to Attorney-Gen. 1954-56; Legal Draftsman 1956-58; Solicitor-Gen. 1959-61; Legal Draftsman, West Indies 1958-59; Asst Attorney-Gen., West Indies 1961-62; Attorney- Gen., Guyana 1965-73; member Nat. Assembly 1965-75; Minister of State for External Affairs 1967-72, Minister of Foreign Affairs 1972-75, of Justice 1973-75; Commonwealth Sec.-Gen. 1975-90; Chancellor Univ. of Guyana 1988-92, Univ. of Warwick 1989-2001, Univ. of West Indies 1989-; Queen's Counsel 1965 and Sr Counsel, Guyana 1966; member Int. Commission of Jurists, Ind. Commission on Int. Devt Issues, Ind. Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, Ind. Commission on Int. Humanitarian Issues, World Commission on Environment and Devt, South Commission, Carnegie Commission on Deadly Conflict, Bd of Governor Int. Devt Research Center, Canada, Exec. Cttee of Int. Inst. for Environment and Devt, Council of Int. Negotiation Network Carter Center, Georgia, USA 1991-97; Patron One World Broadcasting Trust; Chair. UN Cttee for Devt Planning 1984-87, West Indian Commission 1990-92, Bd Int. Inst. for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 1995-2001, Advisory Cttee Future Generations Alliance Foundation 1995-97; Pres. World Conservation Union-IUCN 1990-93; Int. Steering Cttee Leadership for Environment and Devt Program Rockefeller Foundation 1991-98; Co-Chair. Commission on Global Governance 1992-2000; Adviser to Sec. -Gen. of United Nations Council for Education and Development 1992; Chief Negotiator on Int. Econ. Issues for the Caribbean Region 1997-2001; Facilitator Belize-Guatemala Dispute 2000-02; John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship 1962; Hon. Bencher of Gray's Inn 1981; Fellow, King's Coll., London 1975, LSE 1979, RSA 1981, Magdalen Coll., Oxford 1982.
Honours and awards: Order of the Republic (Egypt) 1973; Grand Cross, Order of the Sun (Peru) 1974; Grand Cross, Order of Merit (Ecuador) 1974, Order of Nishaan Izzuddeen (Maldives) 1989, Grand Commdr, Order of Niger 1990, Grand Commdr, Order of the Companion of Freedom (Zambia) 1990, Nishan-e-Quaid-i-Azam (Pakistan) 1990, Order of the Caribbean Community 1991, Commdr Order of the Golden Ark 1994; Hon. LLD (Panjab Univ.) 1975, (Southampton) 1976, (Univ. of The West Indies) 1978, (St Francis Xavier Univ., Halifax, Canada) 1978, (Aberdeen) 1979, (Cape Coast, Ghana) 1980, (London) 1981, (Benin, Nigeria) 1982, (Hull) 1983, (Yale) 1985, (Cambridge) 1985, (Warwick) 1988, (York Univ. , Ont., Canada) 1988, (Malta) 1989, (Otago, New Zealand) 1990; Hon. DHL (Simmons Coll., Boston) 1982; Hon. DCL (Oxon.) 1982, (East Anglia) 1983, (Durham) 1985; Dr hc (Surrey) 1979, (Essex) 1980; Hon. DHumLitt (Duke Univ., USA) 1985; Hon. DLitt (Bradford) 1985, (Indira Gandhi Nat. Open Univ.) 1989; Hon. DSc (Cranfield Inst. of Tech.) 1987; Arden and Atkin Prize, Gray's Inn 1952, Int. Educ. Award (Richmond Coll., London) 1988, RSA Albert Medal 1988, Medal of Friendship, Cuba 2001, Pravasi Bharata Samman Award 2003.
Publications: One World to Share: Selected Speeches of the Commonwealth Secretary-General 1975-79, Nkrumah and the Eighties (1980 Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures), Sovereignty and Solidarity (1981 Callander Memorial Lectures), Some in Light and Some in Darkness: The Long Shadow of Slavery (Wilberforce Lecture) 1983, The Message not the Messenger (STC Communication Lecture) 1985, The Trampling of the Grass (Econ. Commission for Africa Silver Jubilee Lecture) 1985, For the South, a Time to Think 1986, Making Human Society a Civilized State (Corbishley Memorial Lecture) 1987, Inseparable Humanity: An Anthology of Reflections of Shridath Ramphal 1988, An End to Otherness (six speeches) 1990, Our Country, The Planet 1992, No Island is an Island and contributions to journals of legal, political and int. affairs, including International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Caribbean Quarterly, Public Law, Guyana Journal, The Round Table, Royal Society of Arts Journal, Foreign Policy, Third World Quarterly, International Affairs.
London College of Communication, London College of Printing until a name change in 2004, is the largest College of University of the Arts London [formerly London Institute, founded 1985, name change 2004] with around 9000 students. It has formed over a number of years, from its inception in 1893 until the present day, through developments of curriculum, name changes and mergers: St Bride Foundation Printing School [founded 1883], became London School of Printing and Kindred Trades in 1922; Bolt Court Technical School, formerly the Guild and Technical School, Clerkenwell [founded 1894, name change 1895, merged 1949]; College for Distributive Trades [merged 1990]; Westminster Day Continuation School [founded 1921, renamed the School of Retail Distribution 1929]; and the Printing Department of the North Western Polytechnic [founded 1883, opened 1929, merged 1969].
In 1949 Bolt Court and the College of Printing and Kindred Trades merged to form the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts, renamed London College of Printing in 1962 when it took up its current site at Elephant and Castle, South London. The building was officially opened in 1964 by Sir Isaac Hayward. On the merger with College for Distributive Trades the College changed its name again to reflect the new disciplines offered to the London College of Printing and Distributive Trades, then in 1996 to London College of Printing.
Both St Brides and North Western were established by the City of London Parochial Charities Act and thus have always been rooted in London and its communities. When St Brides opened the doors, in 1894, of its first evening courses 124 students attended. Until 1912 there was no full time principal, then Mr J. R. Riddell was appointed. His appointment lead teaching from textbook based lessons to practical lessons. The first full time courses soon followed, 1919. Thus, from the first the College has specialised in and developed course in all aspects of printing and communication, from photography to graphic design.
Today the College is made up of four Schools: School of Graphic Design; The School of Creative Enterprise; School of Media; School of Printing and Publishing.
The Independent Force was established by the Royal Air Force on 6 June 1918 to conduct a strategic bombing campaign against Germany, concentrating on strategic industries, communications and the morale of the civilian population. The Independent Force was formed out of the Royal Flying Corp's Forty-First Wing which commenced operations in October 1917. This initiative was partly in response to German airship and aeroplane raids on England but it also built upon earlier, small scale attempts at strategic bombing by the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps. As its name implied, it operated independently from the land battle and struck at targets in central Germany including Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Bonn, and Mannheim. It was also intended to operate independently of the control of the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Foch, although this was later changed.
The Independent Force was commanded, reluctantly at first, by Major-General Hugh Trenchard who was gradually converted to the idea of strategic bombing by the operations of the Independent Force. The squadrons were based on airfields in the Nancy region, well to the south of the British sector of the Front Line. Although the effort appears miniscule compared to later bombing campaigns, four day and five night bomber squadrons dropped just 550 tons of bombs during 239 raids between 6 June and 10 November 1918, the effect on the German war effort was remarkable. The main targets were railways, blast furnaces, chemical factories that produced poison gas, other factories, and barracks to which had to be added airfields in an effort to reduce attrition from enemy fighter aircraft.
The effect on morale was out of all proportion to the size of the bomber force or the material damage caused and the air raids resulted in the movement of German air defence units away from the Front Line. Trenchard ordered statistics and records to be kept to demonstrate the work of the Independent Force and the role of strategic bombing in modern war.
Gilbert Blount was an English Catholic architect born in 1819 and active from about 1840-70. He received his earliest training as a civil engineer under Isambard Kingdom Brunel (c 1825-28) for whom he worked as a superintendent of the Thames Tunnel works. After a period in the office of Sydney Smirke, Blount was appointed as architect to Cardinal Wiseman, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster.
Blount's mature work coincided with the resurgence of Catholic church building in England. His activity as an architect was largely in service of the need for new churches and related ecclesiastical institutions.
Documents accumulated during the work of Brunel University Library, documenting meetings and reports.
The Transport History Collection consists largely of two substantial bequests relating to British railway history, namely the Clinker collection and the Garnett collection. Charles Ralph Clinker was born at Rugby in 1906 and joined the Great Western Railway from school in 1923 as a passenger train runner. By the time of the outbreak of World War Two he had risen to become liaison officer for the four major railway companies with Southern Command HQ, and as such was involved in the planning and execution of the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 and the D-Day Landings in 1944. He left railway service in 1946 and devoted the rest of his life to research and lecturing on railway history, a taste which he had acquired when seconded to assist E. T. MacDermot in the preparation of his History of the Great Western Railway (London, 1964), and which Clinker subsequently revised for publication in 1982. Clinker wrote numerous books and pamphlets on railway history; his Clinker's Register of closed passenger stations and goods depots in England, Scotland and Wales, 1830-1977 (1963, revised 1978) is widely regarded as his magnum opus. He died in 1983.
David Garnett was born near Warrington in 1909 and as young man qualified as a chartered electrical engineer, soon afterwards completing his training at the Brush works in Loughborough. He then worked at the lift manufacturer Waygood-Otis, and during World War Two served with the National Fire Service, then at the Admiralty. In the 1950s he began to build a collection of railway and other maps which at the time of his death in 1984 was one of the finest such collections in the country.
Chris Wookey was born on 2 Aug 1957 and was a student at Brunel University, 1975-1979, obtaining an honours degree in Applied Biochemistry. He was a keen railway photographer and Chairman of the Brunel University Railway Society for two years. After leaving Brunel he taught Chemistry for almost ten years at Ryden's School in Walton-on-Thames. He died in 1989.
The first rules of the Society, dating from 1808, called for an annual general meeting at the end of June, at which officers were to be elected, accounts presented and a subscription raised. In 1811 it was agreed that an anniversary dinner should be held on the day following the AGM. By 1818 the AGM and Anniversary Dinner were being held in February but are now held in June. A presidential address was first read by W H Fitton in 1828, and from 1835 the AGM included the presentation of medals and other awards.
Up until the late 1990s, the Elected Officers (ie Treasurer, Foreign Secretary, Honorary Secretaries, etc) were far more involved in the day to day running of the Geological Society. Depending on their office and interest, each would act as chair on particular committees.
The Library of the Geological Society is considered to have been founded in 1809, when on 3 March of that year it was noted that 'presents have been made of some works on Geology and Mineralogy'. Much of the initial collection came through donations from Members and authors or exchanges with other organisations, and from the earliest period users could borrow material.
When the Society moved to Somerset House in 1828 the modest 1,000 or so volumes of the Library were housed in a single room. The Museum collections, on the other hand, were spread around the apartments, eventually taking up the entire second floor and part of the third as well as being displayed along the staircases and hall. However by the 1860s, the Library collection had multiplied at a far greater rate than the Museum, with books having to be housed in the Assistant Secretary's room, Meeting Room, Tea-Room and Council Room. Indeed by then, the Fellows considered the Library collections as being more important than the Museum. In 1869 (in preparation for the Society's move to Burlington House in 1874), the Museum collection was slimmed down and restricted to only those specimens which directly related to a published paper, however it still took up the majority of the second floor of the new apartments. As its use by Fellows gradually decreased, it was decided at the end of the 19th century that the Museum should be disposed of and the space be used instead to house the Library. Referred to as the 'Upper Library' (as opposed to the original 'Lower Library'), from 1911 it has been the main Library space for readers, housing the most heavily used material. Nowadays the Library collection consists of around 300,000 volumes of monographs, periodicals and textbooks.
The first 'Librarian' was Thomas Webster, who oversaw the Library alongside his duties as Keeper of the Museum, secretary, Journal editor, etc. His successor William Lonsdale was appointed in 1829, and the first extensive catalogues date from his tenure. On Lonsdale's final retirement in 1842, Edward Forbes took over the duties as Librarian and Curator, succeeded in 1844 by David Thomas Ansted. When Ansted's duties were revised, becoming Vice-Secretary, James de Carle Sowerby became Curator and Librarian between 1846-1848. There followed: James Nicol (1847-1850); Thomas Rupert Jones (1850-1862); Henry Michael Jenkins (1862-1868); William Sweetland Dallas (1869-1890); Louis Belinfante (1890-1916); C P Chatwin (1916-1919); Arthur Greig (1919-?1939); Emelyn Eastwood (1939-1946); Pamela Robinson (1946-1947); Miss A Barber (1947-1960); Mrs C E Nash (1960); Miss Ann M Paddick (1960-1962); Mrs J L Green (1962-1965); Mrs A M Tyler (1965-1970); Mrs Edeltraud Nutt (1970-1987).
The Geological Society was founded on 13 November 1807 for the purpose of 'making Geologists acquainted with each other, of stimulating their zeal, of inducing them to adopt one nomenclature, of facilitating the communication of new facts, and of ascertaining what is known in their science, and what yet remains to be discovered'. (GSL/OM/1/1, p1) This would be primarily achieved by holding regular meetings where members, later Fellows, could read papers or communications, show specimens and maps or donate material to the burgeoning Museum and Library. These 'Ordinary' meetings were initially held at the Freemason's Tavern until the Society acquired its own premises in 1809.
In its early days, all business concerning the running of the Society was discussed at the Ordinary Meetings, including the proposal and election of new Fellows. However, much of the overall responsibility for the management of the Society's affairs was taken over by Council which was first appointed on 1 June 1810.
By 1810, Ordinary Meetings were being held twice a month from November to June [the summer being a period when field trips would be undertaken], and overseen by the President of the Society. Non members could attend as long as they were introduced by a Fellow, however women were not admitted until the turn of the next century. There was a two year period during Leonard Horner's presidency (1860-1862) in which women were reportedly allowed as guests, but this attempt was seen as relatively unsuccessful as it was mainly Horner's daughters who came. Although the issue was raised on a frequent basis, it was not until 1901 when Archibald Geikie introduced two women to an Ordinary Meeting that the matter was settled. Women were finally be allowed to become full Fellows in 1919.
The Ordinary Meeting format had changed by the 1970s, the meetings being themed around a specific topic and hence developing into the special scientific meetings which are now held. However the bye-laws of the Society stipulate that only certain business, such as the election of new members and calls for Special General Meetings, can be held at Ordinary General Meetings. As the meetings calendar gradually moved away from the traditional Ordinary Meetings, the procedures of the OGM were inserted into other meeting events, especially during the 1990s. OGMs are now held five times a year after each meeting of Council, the only business essentially now conducted is the admission of new members.
Note: as Ordinary Meetings were, for the most part, held in the evening they are sometimes referred to as 'Evening Meetings' in the archival record.
Sir Jethro Justinian Harris Teall was born on 5 January 1849, the only child of Jethro Teall, at Northleach, Gloucestershire. He attended Berkeley Villa School followed by St John's College Cambridge, where he turned from mathematics to geology and was taught by Thomas Bonney and Adam Sedgwick. He was the first recipient of the Sedgwick prize for geology in 1874, after which he became a fellow (1875) and taught under the university extension scheme, as well as carrying out petrographic research.
He was particularly interested in metamorphic minerals and the crystallization of magmas, leading him to produce his celebrated work 'British Petrography' (1888), which was partially illustrated by his wife Harriet. In 1888 he joined the Geological Survey of Great Britain, becoming its director from 1901 to 1914, when he retired. During this time he extended the Survey's activities and enhanced its utility and educational value.
Teall was elected Fellow of the Geological Society in 1873, and spent time as secretary (1893-1897) and president (1900-1902). He also received the Bigsby and the Wollaston medals (1889 and 1905). Other recognitions include the presidency of the Geologists' Association (1898-1900), Fellowship of the Royal Society (1890), the Delesse prize from the Académie des Sciences (1907), and honorary doctorates from Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, and St Andrews, in addition to his knighthood (1916). He died on 2 July 1924.
Arthur Greig was born in London on 5 January 1893. One of eleven children, his formal education was not prolonged, but a schoolmaster had inspired him with an interest in books and ideas. On 13 October 1908, Greig joined the Society's staff (which then numbered only three) at the age of 15 on probation as an 'extra assistant in Library and Office'. He had been introduced to the Society by the then Clerk, Clyde Henderson Black, who was a neighbour and friend of the family. Greig's appointment was confirmed on 1 January 1909 as 'Assistant in Library, Office and Museum' at a salary of two shillings per week.
Following the outbreak of World War One in August 1914, Greig enlisted in the London Scottish Regiment and was posted overseas in March 1915. Apart from three months at an Officer Cadet School in Cambridge, Greig served with the infantry in France. Commissioned from the rank of sergeant in December 1916, he was demobilised in 1919, as a Captain.
On his return to the Society, he was promoted in October 1919 to Librarian. After C H Black's resignation as Clerk in April 1923, Greig was additionally given charge of the Library and Office with an assistant in each. In January 1931 he succeeded L L Belinfante as Assistant Secretary of the Society and editor of the Quarterly Journal. He was called up to serve again as a reserve officer in the Second World War, however his military duties involved aerodrome defence in South East England, guarding the Tower of London, which enabled him to keep in touch with Society business and continue his editorial duties. He was finally demobilised with the rank of Major. Greig retired as Assistant Secretary in 1961, but continued to serve the Society - creating cumulative indexes for the Quarterly Journal and contributing to the 'Annual List of Geological Literature Added to the Society Library'. He only relinquished these duties at the age of 90 years old, due to failing eyesight.
Greig's remarkable contribution to the Society was marked by his award of the Wollaston Fund in 1951, his award of an MBE in 1959 (nominated by the Society) and his election as Fellow on 8 May 1963, later becoming an Honorary Fellow on 29 April 1981. Arthur Greig died on 16 February 1989.
The provenance of the slides is unclear, they were found in a damp and dirty 'potting shed' presumably in the late 1990s and subsequently donated to the Society in 2001. At least half of the slides were either taken by Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy or reflect his interests at the turn of the 19th/20th century and additionally include a number by Ethel Partridge who became his first wife in 1902.
Robert Millner Shackleton was born in Purley, Surrey, on 30 December 1909. He was educated at the Quakers' (Society of Friends) Sidcot School in Somerset and the University of Liverpool, graduating B.Sc. Geology with First Class Honours in 1930. He went on to research at Liverpool under P.G.H. Boswell on the geology of the Moel Hebog area of Snowdonia in North Wales (Ph.D. 1934), then won a Beit Fellowship at Imperial College London 1932-1934. In 1935 he was appointed Chief Geologist to Whitehall Exploration Ltd in Fiji but returned to Imperial College as Lecturer in Geology in 1936.
In 1940 Shackleton was appointed a geologist in the Mining and Geological Department of Kenya, as part of the wartime strategic planning programme. He surveyed widely throughout Kenya producing reports for the Geological Survey of Kenya on the areas of Malikisi, North Kavirondo, Nyeri, the Migori Gold Belt, and Nanyuki and Maralal. His studies extended into the geometry of the orogenic belts of East Africa and the volcanism that produced the Rift System. In 1942 the archaeologist Mary Leakey discovered prehistoric human artefacts at Olorgesailie, a lower Palaeolithic (Acheulean) site southwest of Nairobi. In the mid-1940s Mary and L.S.B. Leakey excavated the site and Shackleton collaborated with the investigations, preparing geological maps of the area around the Olorgesailie site and the area between Olorgesailie and Ngong.
Shackleton returned to Imperial College in 1945 and was offered a Professorship there. However, he thought the department too unmanageable and in 1948 returned to Liverpool as the Herdman Professor of Geology. In his time in the Herdman chair, he re-organised the Liverpool geology department and put it at the forefront of geological research in Britain. In 1962, in order to increase his opportunities for research in Africa, Shackleton became Professor of Geology in the University of Leeds and joined the staff of the Research Institute of African Geology (serving as Director from 1965 until retirement). For the year 1970-1971 Shackleton was Royal Society Leverhulme Visiting Professor of Geology at the Haile Selassie University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He formally retired in 1975 but was Research Fellow at the Open University from 1977 until his death and remained very active in field geology.
Shackleton's influence on his profession was profound. His achievements were recognized by the award of the Silver Medal of the Liverpool Geological Society (1957) and the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London (1970), and his election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society (1971). His Royal Society citation recorded that he was:
'Well-known for his contributions to the study of crystalline rocks, more particularly of rock deformation and large scale tectonics. A versatile pioneer in investigation of the Caledonides of Wales and western Ireland, of Rift Valley vulcanicity and Pre-Cambrian tectonics. His papers and discussions have influenced much recent work in these fields in which he has trained many of the younger British workers. Of particular importance have been his work on Tertiary volcanics in Kenya, his understanding of the Pre-Cambrian of eastern and central Affica.-and his acqounts of Dairadian structures and deposits'.
Shackleton produced some 160 scientific papers and through encouragement of younger colleagues exerted a deep influence on several generations of geologists. He had an extremely wide knowledge of his subject, from the origins of the Earth to the evolution of man. Although his earlier work had focused on the British Isles, he developed a particular interest in the geology of East Africa. Shackleton initiated structural studies across orogenic belts in Tarizania-Zambia-Malawi (in the late 1960s), major studies across the Limpopo Belt and adjacent Archaean greenstone belts of Zimbabwe-Botswana-South Africa (in the 1970s) and projects across the orogenic systems of Egypt, Sudan and Kenya (in the early 1980s). Just prior to his death he was working on a detai led compilation of the Pre-Cambrian geology of East Africa. Shackleton's interests were global, however, and continuing research interests included the Pre-Cambrian geology of Arabia and the tectonics of the central and western Himalayas. At the age of 75 he led a pioneering Royal Society geological traverse across Tibet, in collaboration with the Academica Sinica, Beijing.
Shackleton died on 3 May 2001. He married three times and left five children (two sons and three daughters), including the distinguished geoscientist Professor Sir Nicholas Shackleton (1937-2006).
Mount Pelée began its eruptions on 23 April 1902, the main eruption occurring on 8 May 1902 which destroyed the nearby town of Saint-Pierre, killing or injuring most of its 30,000 inhabitants. The eruption is considered to be the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century.
George Duncan Gibb was born in Montreal, Canada, on 25 December 1821. He studied medicine at McGill University and graduated in 1846, being appointed immediately afterwards as Surgeon to the Canadian Militia. He moved to Dublin to pursue his studies, becoming a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. In 1853, Gibb moved to London being at first Physician at St Pancras General Dispensary which he left to take up the post of Assistant Physician to the Westminster Hospital in 1863.
Throughout his stay in London, Gibb added various qualifications to his name, FGS (1855), MRCP (1859), LLD (1864 from Quebec) and most notably 'Sir' which was attached to a supposed baronetcy - a title which he adopted after research into his family history discovered it to be 'vacant'.
Gibb wrote numerous publications on laryngology, his family history, unusual meteorology and Canadian geology. He died on 16 February 1876 from lung disease.
Born in 1784, in Axminster, Devon, William Buckland had developed an interest in natural history and geology whilst exploring the local woods and quarries with his father Charles Buckland, the rector of Templeton and Trusham. Buckland was initially home schooled by his father, but in 1797 entered Blundell's School in Tiverton, enrolling the following year at St Mary's College, Winchester.
With the help of his uncle, John Buckland, he entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, as a scholar on the Exeter Foundation, obtaining his BA in classics and theology three years later. Buckland was elected Fellow of the College in 1808 when he was ordained. During this time he had been attending the lectures of John Kidd, reader in mineralogy at Oxford and when Kidd resigned in 1813, Buckland succeeded him. That same year he became a Member of the Geological Society. In 1818 he was appointed to the new readership in geology and his inaugural lecture of 1819 'Vindiciae geologicae', compiled with the help of his mentor the Rev William Daniel Conybeare, explained that the facts of geology were conversant with the record of the creation of the Earth found in the Bible - notably the presence of older gravels (diluvium) which could not be explained through normal river deposits and therefore provided evidence of a 'universal deluge', that is Noah's flood.
Buckland's most important early geological work was on fossil cave faunas, principally his excavations of the Kirkdale Cavern, Yorkshire. There he discovered the bones of hyenas and other exotic animals such as an elephant, hippomatus and rhinocerus. His theory that the cave was a hyena den and the exotic animals had been dragged in as their prey was backed up by his experiments on and observation of modern hyenas. The results were published as 'Reliquiae diluvianae' (1823), and his discoveries at Kirkdale won him the Royal Society's Copley medal in 1822.
Due to his modest income from his two readerships and teaching, by 1825 Buckland was considering leaving Oxford for a more lucrative position, such as vicar, elswhere. However with the help of influential friends such as Sir Robert Peel, Buckland managed to obtain the position of canon to Christ Church which had an income of five times his previous salary. In December of that year he married Mary Morland, who had been helping him with his work and also illustrating his papers for a number of years.
In the field, Buckland notoriously dressed in a rather eccentric manner, always wearing his academic gown and carrying a large blue bag from which he would draw out his latest finds such as fossil faeces of giant marine reptiles. Buckland had found and identified these 'Coprolites', the term he coined for fossil faeces, in Lyme Regis when he worked with the fossil collector Mary Anning.
Buckland continued to research and publish over the next two decades, notably his influential treatise 'Geology and Mineralogy' of 1836, in which he abandoned his former belief in the geological effects deriving from the biblical flood. Indeed after a visit to Switzerland to see his friend Louis Agassiz in 1838, the Swiss naturalist had convinced him that glaciation had been more extensive in the past - leading Buckland to reinterpret his early theories and observations of a universal flood as evidence instead for the new glacial theory of an ice age. Buckland was extremely active within the Geological Society, serving twice as its President between 1824-1826 and 1839-1841, and winning the Wollaston Medal (the highest award bestowed by the Society) in 1848.
In 1845, Buckland had become dissatisfied with academic life in Oxford and accepted the appointment of dean of Westminster, coupled with the rectorship of Islip, near Oxford, although he still continued to lecture on geology in the university town. However by 1850 his diminishing mental health, possibly resulting from a fall from a coach a few years earlier, prevented Buckland from performing his duties as dean or professor. He retired to Islip but was later placed in The Retreat, a mental asylum in Clapham where he died on 14 August 1856.
Frederic William Harmer was born on 24 April 1835 in Norwich. His father, Thomas Harmer, was a partner in the local clothes manufacturing company Harmer and Rivett. At the age of 15, Frederic joined the family firm and would eventually change the firm's name to F W Harmer and Co.
The early period of his life was focussed on business, but in 1864 he met the younger Valentine Searles Wood (1830-1884) on the Mundesley shore and began a firm friendship and geological partnership. Together they studied the Pliocene deposits, the fauna of which was then being described in the monographs of the Palaeontographical Society ('The Crag Mollusca') by Searles Wood the elder. The Drift deposits also engaged their attention, and between them the two men surveyed an area of 2000 square miles, Harmer undertaking the survey of Norfolk and Northern Suffolk. Their map, produced on a scale of 1 inch to the mile, was claimed to be the first 'drift' map of the kind.
The prolonged illness and then death of the younger Searles Wood in 1884, and his reluctance to study geology alone, saw Harmer devoting the next few years to municipal duties and politics of the day. However a disagreement over the question of Irish Home Rule, caused Harmer to return whole-heartedly to geology.
His later work concerned the Tertiary and Quaternary deposits of East Anglia and the Continent, and comparing the Pliocene sequence in Britain with that in Holland and Belgium. He devoted the last few years of his life updating the 'Monograph of the Crag Mollusca'. Harmer died on 11 April 1923.
He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1869, and was awarded the Murchison Medal in 1902 in recognition of his work on the Pliocene and other deposits of East Anglia.