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Charlotte Caroline Sowerby was the eldest daughter of the conchologist, illustrator and natural history dealer George Brettingham Sowerby (1788-1854) who was, like other members of her family, a talented natural history illustrator. Her best known published work was The illustrated bouquet, consisting of figures with descriptions of new flowers, published by E G Henderson and Son, London, 1857-1864.

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.

Until 1979, the archives of the Geological Society were spread throughout the offices of Burlington House. Aided with an initial grant subsidy from the British Library which ran between 1979-1982, the Society was able to appoint an archivist and a conservator to at last look after the collections professionally. An archives store was constructed in 1981/1982 funded by the work of the Appeals Committee.

A further grant subsidy from the British Library was awarded at the end of 1983 for what became known as the Burlington House Conservation Project, which involved the conservation studio taking on work from local learned societies and the Royal Academy. However the external funding ended in 1986 and with the Society unable to finance the costly facility itself, the studio closed. Most of the equipment was later exchanged in lieu of conservation services.

The first step towards marking the Centenary of the founding of the Geological Society of London was the motion of Horace Bolingbroke Woodward, presented before Council on 9 November 1904, to consider the appointment of a 'Record Committee' to oversee the compilation of a history of Society. The motion was passed, and the resulting work published as: Woodward, H B. 'The History of the Geological Society of London', London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1908.

The second step was the re-election of the experienced Sir Archibald Geikie as President of the Society for the sessions 1906-1908, in view of the Centenary (he had previously served as President between 1890-1892). Much of the preliminary arrangements for the Centenary were discussed by the Record Committee during its meetings, but Council additionally constituted a 'Centenary Committee' (which included members of the Record Committee) to formally draw up a programme and organise the proposed event. Although the Society was officially founded on the 13 November 1807, it was thought that the end of September would be more convenient for the majority of colonial and foreign guests. In all, over 900 individuals were invited to participate in the Centenary celebrations of which 307 actually attended.

The official Centenary celebrations were held between 26 September-3 October 1907, however a series of preliminary field excursions to places such as the Lake District, Lyme Regis and the Forest of Dean were held in the preceding week. The Centenary celebrations were opened by a formal reception held at the Institution of Civil Engineers, at 11am on Thursday 26 September, where congratulatory telegrams from individuals and organisations from all over the world were read out. This was followed by a Presidential address at 3pm, and the day brought to a close by a dinner at the Whitehall Rooms, Hotel Metropole where further speeches were given. A Conversazione was organised for the Friday but short excursions and visits to places of interest were also available over the next few days to those who wished them. The Society's apartments were opened to the visitors: the Museum was converted to a conversation, writing and smoking room; the Council Room became a ladies' drawing room; and the Meeting Room was used as cloak room and dressing room. The Geological Society Club also hosted a dinner to entertain the foreign and colonial delegates on the evening of Friday 27 September. The celebrations were rounded off by a visit to Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where a number of the foreign delegates received honorary degrees.

One of the Geological Society's principal functions when it was formed was to hold scientific meetings where members could discuss the latest theories or discoveries in the field of geology. The original meetings were referred to as 'Ordinary General Meetings' or 'Ordinary Meetings' (see series GSL/OM), however by the 1970s the meeting format had changed, being more likely themed around a specific topic and hence developing into the 'Special' scientific meetings which are now held. These 'Special' meetings may be jointly sponsored by other bodies or held over a series of days. The series also includes national or international conferences which have some Geological Society involvement.

At the second meeting of the Society in December 1807, a Committee of Trustees was appointed to draw up the rules for the regulation of the fledgling body and instructions to the honorary members to accompany notice of their election. Proposals by this Committee and the various sub-committees which were in existence at the time, were submitted to its Members for discussion at the regular Ordinary General Meetings. However in 1810 it was decided to replace the Committee of Trustees with a more formal Council, leaving the OGMs solely for the discussion of papers and the election of new members. The first members of Council were appointed on 1 June 1810, holding their inaugural meeting two weeks later on the 14 June.

Council is still responsible for the management and direction of all the affairs of the Society.

From the earliest years of the Society, small committees were formed with specific organisational remits. The Committee of Trustees, appointed at the end of 1807, was the first, its task was to draw up the rules for the regulation of the fledgling Society and instructions to the honorary members to accompany notice of their election. When the Council was established in June 1810, the various 'standing' (that is permanent) committees tasked with overseeing the management of the Society's apartments, maps, publications, etc were formally appointed by and therefore reported to this senior body. Additionally 'Special' committees were formed on an ad hoc basis to deal with a specific issue or project, such as the refurbishment of the Society's apartments or the appointment of new staff, which could not necessarily be dealt with in the day to day business of one of the standing committees.

As the Society grew in size and complication, the 'Special' committees were more likely to be established as permanent committees of their own, however they would report to the hierarchy of the specific major standing committee which had appointed it rather than to Council.

With various reorganisations over the years and adaptations to modern management requirements, the names and functions of the standing committees has been frequently subject to change, with committees merging or being replaced by others.

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.

Historically the Assistant Secretary, later Permanent Secretary, was the first point of contact with the Society (besides the President and members of Council) and as the post holder also acted as editor of the Journal and occasionally the Librarian and Curator, the majority of the day to day correspondence and administration came through his office. By the late 1960s, the role had developed into what is now the Executive Secretary (essentially the Chief Executive of the Society), and although the postholder no longer has editorial duties, the office is still the central administrative department of the organisation. However it should be noted as some functions of the Society have developed, specific departments have been established to take over the running of some of these tasks, such as the Conference Office which now organises the scientific meetings. The Executive Secretary still ultimately oversees these subsidiary departments as well as sitting on most of the Society's major standing committees, therefore the Executive Secretary series still reflects most of the Society's functions.

Like other learned societies, establishing a membership body formed of like minded individuals was one of the core aims of the Geological Society of London when it was established in 1807. Up until 1825, when the Society was granted its Royal Charter, there were only two categories of membership - Ordinary Members and Honorary Members (the latter category modified to 'Foreign' Members from December 1814).

To become an Ordinary Member, a candidate had to be first proposed and recommended by at least three existing members, one of whom should personally know the prospective member. The proposal was in the form of an admission certificate, usually completed by the main proposer, which would be displayed in one of the public rooms of the Society. Voting would take place at the specified Ordinary Meeting, whereby if the candidate received approval from at least two thirds of the attendees he would be accepted as a new member. If he was not successful, his admission form would be destroyed. New members would pay a joining fee and sign a form obligating themselves to promote the aims of the Geological Society of London. Members who lived within a 20 mile radius of London would pay an additional annual fee, not applicable to those living outside of London as presumably they were less likely to use the Society's facilities.

Distinguished mineralogists and persons who had by their communications or contributions promoted the objects of the Society could be proposed as Honorary/Foreign Members. The system for proposal was similar to that of Ordinary Members but instead at least five existing members had to propose the candidate. Honorary Members did not pay the joining fee or annual subscription but could use the Society's facilities such as the Library or Museum, although they were not allowed to vote.

After the Society's official incorporation in 1826, the categories of membership were modified slightly to reflect the new Royal Charter - Ordinary Members became 'Fellows' but the honorary category of Foreign Member remained. It should be noted that it was not until the mid 20th century that formal qualifications were required for entry as a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. Additionally women were not allowed to join until 1919, the first official female Fellow being Margaret Chorley Crosfield who was elected in May of that year.

In 1863 a new category of honorary membership was introduced - Foreign Correspondent. A stage below Foreign Member, a Foreign Correspondent had to have distinguished himself as a geological investigator or communicated extensively with the Society but 'be a native of the British Dominions or of their dependencies, or be domiciliated therein'. Foreign Correspondents had no privileges at the Society, but from their rank would be elected Foreign Members who were not allowed to propose candidates, vote at general meetings or to fill any office at the Society, but were entitled to exercise all other privileges allowed to Fellows. There was a quota of 40 Foreign Correspondents and 40 Foreign Members allowed at one time, and as they didn't pay neither category of member needed to actually turn up to the Society in person. In 1974, the category was merged and renamed 'Honorary Fellow', limited to a maximum of 100, with not more than 15 coming from the UK.

Apart from Fellow and Honorary Fellow, the Society now offers another four grades of membership: Junior Candidate Fellow (for secondary school children between the ages 16-18); Candidate Fellow, previously Junior Associateship (for geology undergraduates, first introduced in 1945); Chartered Geologist (open to Fellows of the Society with no less than five years' postgraduate experience); European Geologist (licensed by the European Federation of Geologists and open to Chartered Geologists); and Chartered Scientist (licensed by the Science Council, open to those Fellows who have moved out of mainstream geological work since completing higher education, but who wish to register themselves as high calibre scientists and teachers of science).

The Geological Society had originally formed as a 'Geological Dinner Club' at the Freemason's Tavern, Great Queen Street, London, on the 13 November 1807. However whilst the Society flourished, attendance at the Dining Club rapidly declined. A fine of 10s 6d was imposed for non attendance without prior warning, but by 1809 the total stood at £37 16s of which only £6 6s had been received. By around 1811, meetings of the Club had ceased.

The present Club was revived in 1824 by 30 members of the Society, some of whom had attended the previous Club. The first meeting was held at the Thatched House Tavern, St James' Street, on 5 November 1824. The rules on establishment limited membership to 40, however this number was never achieved during its early years and was reduced to 36 members in 1836. From 1904, the membership was gradually raised and by 1999 stood at 202 members.

Fellowship of the Society was, from the first, an essential qualification, however subsequent classes of supernumerary and honorary ranks were introduced later. Guests could be invited, unless the dinners were 'closed meetings' which could only be attended by Club members. In 1973, it was decided that most of the dinners, except for closed meetings, could be open events, that is attended by any Fellow of the Society.

Traditionally, meetings were held on the evenings of every Ordinary Meeting of the Society, but are now monthly.

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).

From its earliest days, the Geological Society collected specimens. Unlike rival collections at the British Museum and other learned bodies, the Society's Museum was intended to be comprehensive. Access was restricted to members of the Society but it was to be of use to both beginners and accomplished geologists. The rudimentary Museum was first laid out in 1809, when the Society moved to its first premises at 4 Garden Court, Temple. However even after the move to a larger house in Lincoln's Inn Fields a year later there was still not enough space to adequately store the specimens.

By 1810 the Museum was in disarray, with new specimens piling up and the existing collection still not catalogued fully. At the first meeting of Council, 14 June 1810, it was resolved that Leonard Horner, Wilson Lowry, Comte de Bournon and Peter Mark Roget would form a 'Committee of Arrangement' to take charge of the collection. In 1812 it was decided to appoint the Society's first paid member of staff, Thomas Webster who had been a Member of the Society since 1809, as (part-time) Keeper of the Museum. Webster's role was not curatorial, instead he was charged with unpacking and registering the specimens which would then be catalogued by the Committee of Arrangement. Webster was overwhelmed with the workload as he also had to fit in his additional duties of honorary secretary, librarian, journal editor as well as keeping an eye on the accounts.

Originally the specimens in the Museum were arranged by country - the British specimens being then subdivided by county. From 1813 the collection began to be arranged stratigraphically, echoing the fossil theories of William Smith. However not all members of the Society agreed with the new layout, and Webster was caught between opposing scientific factions who continually criticised his work. His unpopularity amongst a number of senior Fellows of the Society such as George Bellas Greenough and Charles Lyell when added to the scandal of a clerk absconding with £63 from the sales of the 'Transactions' in 1827, meant that when the remodelled post of 'Curator' was created that year, Webster was not offered it. Webster left on 1 July 1827, later referring to the Society's officers as 'a bad lot'.

Instead the first Curator in 1829 was William Lonsdale. Like Webster, Lonsdale also acted as assistant secretary, editor, librarian and finance officer but at least was employed full time. Lonsdale's appointment was viewed by all as a great success, however he was relieved of his curatorial duties in 1836 when his health broke down from overwork. Between 1839 and 1848 there followed five Curators but this high turnover of staff meant that much of the work was either unfocused or unfinished. In order to try and sort out the ongoing problems in the Museum, various ad hoc Special Museum Committees were formed. Leonard Horner, under the aegis of one of these Special Committees finally managed to get the Museum under some sort of control by the mid 1860s but this happy state of affairs was short lived.

By 1869, it was decided to abandon attempts to form a comprehensive collection. Instead specimens should directly relate to papers read at the Society, resulting in a virtual halt in donations of any kind. The move to Burlington House gave the impetus to thoroughly weed and catalogue the collection again, but after Bernard B Woodward who had overseen the relocation resigned in 1876, the collection received only cursory attention.

In 1895, the Council accepted that a large portion of the collection should be donated to the British Museum but the decision was indefinitely postponed after a special general meeting the following year. However another special general meeting was called by a group of palaeontologists in 1901 to try and force the Council to take better care of the Museum, but their plan backfired and instead a motion was carried that the Museum should be disposed of. This caused a flurry of interest in the Museum, with a threefold increase in visitors and loan requests. John Frederick Blake even produced a catalogue of the whole Museum, published at his own expense as 'List of the Types and Figured Specimens...in the Collection of the Geological Society of London', London (1902).

Finally, after another two special general meetings held on 25 January and 14 June 1911, it was resolved that the Museum should be disposed of and the space used by the Library. The contents were divided between the British Museum (now the Natural History Museum) and the Museum of Practical Geology (part of the British Geological Survey). The British Museum received the foreign specimens, while the domestic collection was given to the other institution. A number of specimens were retained by the Society but only a few remain, notably the ichthyosaur skull found by Mary Anning in Lyme Regis (now in the entrance lobby of the Society's Apartments) and a Pleistocene rhinocerus skull given by William Buckland in 1820 (on the second floor). The Museum space became the Upper Library, but some of the supports for the specimen drawers can still be seen on a number of its shelves.

Traditionally, if a Fellow is still a member of the Society when they die they received a formal, Society obituary which was published in one of the Society's serial publications. These obituaries have not been collated as they are easily retrievable in their published form. Instead this series consists of externally published obituaries or orders of service for Fellows and some members of staff which were mostly collected from the 1990s by Library staff. There is some material which is older, found loose among the backlog of other material and which has been added for ease of use.

It should be noted that the series will include ex members of the Society who resigned their Fellowship at some point before their death, but were kept for informational reasons.

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.

From the beginnings of the Society, Members donated specimens, books and illustrations to the Library and Museum collections. The earliest mention of a portrait image being given was Louis Albert Necker's donation of an engraving of his maternal grandfather Horace Benedict de Saussure in December 1811 [no longer extant].

The Society also holds larger oil paintings and portrait busts of its Fellows, again acquired through donation or by purchase. However from the 1860s onwards, when commercial photography became more available, the Society actively sought to collect images of its Fellows probably inspired by a printed notice issued by the photographer's studio Maull and Polyblank announcing the formation of a carte de visite series of Geological Society Fellows (LDGSL/332). The majority of the images in the portrait collection derive from this series, stopping around the First World War. After the 1930s, and up until the 1990s, portraits were generally only collected of Presidents of the Society.

A Special General Meeting (SGM) could be called at any time for the purpose of taking special matters relating to the business of the Society into consideration. A certain period of notice had to be given to all Fellows who were resident in the United Kingdom, and no other business could be discussed other than that for which the meeting was called. Special General Meetings were mostly concerned with establishing, modifying or repealing orders or byelaws.

SGMs were abolished in 2001.

At the Geological Society's Council meeting on 1 November 1972 it was decided to set up a working party to study the feasibility of maintaining a professional register of geologists. The Society's Council established a 14-strong Working Party on Professional Recognition which first met on 2 January 1973 and reported to Council in March 1974. Their report recognized that professional bodies carried out important functions in regulating the professions, however no existing professional body was deemed an appropriate institution for all geologists to become members. Consequently, the Working Party recommended that a professional body should be established for all geologists.

The Association for the Promotion of an Institution of Professional Geologists, more usually known by its initial letters APIPG, was established by the members of the Working Party, by now acting independently of the Society's Council but with its support. The first meeting of APIPG was a regional meeting held in Plymouth on 3 January 1975. It was followed by a series of eight more regional meetings held in locations around the country. The formal Inaugural Meeting of the Association took place on 24 March 1975 at the Scientific Society's Lecture Theatre in Savile Row, London. At this meeting, a Committee was formally elected to serve for two years with the sole objective of forming an Institution for Professional Geologists. In the event the process took a little longer with the new professional body being created 35 months after the Savile Row meeting. Over that period support from the geological community grew steadily from 620 members in mid-1975 to 963 in mid-1976, and by the end of APIPG's existence there were 1146 members.

By the end of 1977 the Institution of Geologists was fully established in embryonic form. The Institution of Geologists registered as a company limited by guarantee without share capital, a form of organization shared by a number of other professional institutions. It was incorporated in August 1977 with the subscribers being the APIPG Committee. The membership of APIPG voted for the organization to be disbanded and replaced by the Institution of Geologists at a meeting held in the Midland Hotel Birmingham on 24 February 1978.

The highest grade of membership in most professional institutions is termed "Fellow". Initially, IG had only one grade of corporate member (that of Member). By June 1985 however, Council decided to initiate a higher grade of corporate and nominated the former Presidents and Chairmen of Council as six Founding Fellows. A further fourteen members of IG were nominated by this group to form a Founding Fellows "college" of twenty. A Trust Fund was established in 1986 to commemorate the memory of three distinguished geologists who were also Founding Fellows of the Institution and died within a relatively short time of each other. The fund, known as the Distinguished Fellows Memorial Trust, was used to assist young geologists, particularly those in industrial employment, in their professional development by contributing towards travel costs to attend conferences or to gain experience in other appropriate ways.

In 1983, the IG Council decided to enquire of its members what they expected from the Institution in order to establish priorities in planning the development of IG. A questionnaire was sent to the regional groups to ask them to canvas opinion and provide a response to Council. The unanimous answer was that the prime objective should be the acquisition of a Royal Charter which would bestow on the Institution the ability to create the title Chartered Geologist. In January 1984 a committee was established under the chairmanship of Howard Headworth, to investigate how this goal could be achieved. In January 1986 a draft charter was sent to the Privy Council for informal comment. As the document referred to the possibility of a future unification between the IG and the Geological Society, the Privy Council refused to consider the petition as the Geological Society already had its own Royal Charter. Instead they recommended that the petition should be placed on hold until the possibility of any merger between the two organizations was resolved.

The Institution approached the Geological Society to explore a possible merger. A joint Co-operation Committee was established, comprising three senior members of each organization and chaired by Professor Howel Francis as someone seen as neutral by both sides. The first meeting of the joint Co-operation Committee was held in January 1987 and agreed that the unification of the Geological Society and the Institution of Geologists was the proper goal for the two organizations, both in their own interests and that of the geological community in Britain. Negotiations between the IG and GS even included the concept that the new body should have a new name but that was not possible without changing the Society's Royal Charter. In the end, the IG merged with the Society losing some of its identity in the process and with its name disappearing altogether.

With the reunification 259 members of the Institution who had not been Fellows of the Society applied for and were granted fellowship, and some 586 corporate members of the Institution became the first Chartered Geologists even before the reunification process was completed. The total membership of IG at the time of the reunification was 1745, comprising 32 Fellows, 731 Corporate Members, 674 Associate Members, 9 Technician Geologists, 6 Technical Associates, 42 Affiliates and 251 Students.

A vote at IG's AGM on 10 March 1990 at the University of Birmingham saw the demise of IG as a separate organization, and at the beginning of 1991 the Institution of Geologists formally unified with the Geological Society.

Kenneth Oakley was born on 7 April 1911 at Amersham, Buckinghamshire. He attended Challoner's Grammar School and University College School before enrolling at University College London where he graduated with a first class honours BSc in geology (with anthropology as a subsidiary subject) in 1933, as well as gaining the Rosa Morison memorial medal. Oakley began his PhD at the University of London in 1933, but did not complete his research until 1938 due to his appointment to the geological survey in 1934 and his post as an assistant keeper in geology (palaeontology) at the Natural History Museum the following year. The Natural History Museum would be where Oakley spent the rest of his working life, except for a war service secondment to the geological survey.

Oakley became a Fellow of the Society in 1934, gaining the Wollaston Fund award in 1941 and the Prestwich Medal in 1963.

In 1955, Oakley became head of the new sub-department of anthropology within the department of anthropology and held the title of deputy keeper (anthropology) from 1959 to 1969. However he developed multiple sclerosis, which forced his premature retirement. Although eventually confined to a wheelchair, Oakley continued to study and publish work on anthropology until his death on 2 November 1981.

Oakley's major area of interest was in early hominid fossils, particularly the use of technologies to date finds. In the 1940s, he began work with various colleagues on methods of dating bone by analysis of fluorine content. One of the early results of this technique, was finding that a supposedly Middle Pleistocene human skeleton from Galley Hill, Swanscombe, was actually much younger than the gravels in which it was found. This fluorine dating method would lead to, arguably, Oakley's most important contribution to science - the exposure of the Piltdown fraud.

At an Ordinary Meeting of the Geological Society, held on 18 December 1912, Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum, presented the first paper on the discoveries found in a shallow gravel pit at Barkham Manor, near Piltdown in Sussex. According to the two men, they had found an early hominid skull and jaw along with other mammalian fossils which Woodward had dated to around 400,000 years old. The large cranial capacity of the skull alongside an ape like jaw saw the discovery being hailed as the missing link between humans and primates - Piltdown Man.

In 1953, using the fluorine dating techniques which had been developed, Oakley along with colleagues C R Hoskins, J S Weiner and W E Le Gros Clark, tested the Piltdown remains and found that the skull fragments were not as ancient as originally claimed. The cranium was around 500 years old and the jaw came from an orangutan, but its teeth had been filed down to mimic a human like wear pattern.

Charles Henry Lardner Woodd was elected a Fellow on 20 May 1846 but despite being a member until his death in 1893, never submitted a geological paper to the Society. However he was a gifted artist and the eight drawings in this series show the geological features around Cromarty and Assynt in Scotland which were recorded throughout the month of August 1847 when he appears to have been following in the footsteps of the famous Scottish geologist Hugh Miller (1802-1856). At least two of the drawings make reference to 'Miss Allardyce' who is likely to be Catherine Allardyce, one of Miller's social circle in the town of Cromarty.

James Ford was a mining engineer and colliery agent, often working as a consultant. Working in the Midlands and having premises in Doncaster, Newark, and Mold (Wales) between the early 1900s and the late 1920s, he claimed to be the first man to discover the oil strata in England while superintending coal borings in Kelham, Nottinghamshire, in August 1911, at which time he was in a syndicate with Maurice Deacon and C R Hewitt, and advising The Newark Collieries and The Newark Coal and Oil Company. These borings also provided evidence for the eastern extension of the Nottinghamshire Coalfield. The discovery does not appear to have amounted to anything at the time, though oil was later extracted from the area in the 1940s.

In the mid-1920s he became part of a company named the Lincolnshire Coal Boring Syndicate, which had plans to bore for coal and build a power station nearby, thus minimising the expense needed to transport the coal to the power station and resulting in cheap electricity production.

He was a member of the Midlands chapter of the Institution of Mining Engineers (now part of IOM3), and a Fellow of the Geological Society between 1911 and 1936.

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.

Janet Vida Watson was born in London on 1 September 1923, the daughter of D. M. S. Watson FRS, the palaeontologist, and K. M. Watson (née Parker) D.Sc. She was educated privately and at South Hampstead High School, a school chosen by her parents for the high quality of its science teaching for girls. She studied for her B.Sc. in General Science at Reading University 1940-1943, graduating with first class honours. Watson spent 1943-1944 working at the National Institute for Research in Dairying at Reading and 1944-1945 teaching biology at Wentworth School, Bournemouth. In 1945 she entered Imperial College London to study for a B.Sc. in Geology. She graduated in 1947, again with first class honours.

In 1946, on the advice of Professor H. H. Read, she undertook a mapping project in the Highlands of Scotland, initiating her lasting interest in Highland geology. On graduation she registered as a Ph.D. student supported by a Department of Scientific and Industrial Research studentship and, again on the advice of Professor Read, studied the Lewisian complex in the Scourie area of north west Scotland. At the same time John Sutton, another postgraduate student of Read, was working on the Lewisian complex in the Torridon area. Watson and Sutton reached very similar conclusions and the results of their work were written up in a joint paper. Watson and Sutton married in June 1949.

After receiving her Ph.D. in 1949 Watson was awarded a three year Senior Research Fellowship by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. In 1952 she took up a Research Assistantship under H. H. Read at Imperial College, a post she held until 1973 when she was appointed Senior Lecturer. She was employed on a part-time basis 1956-1974, having also to look after her elderly parents and parents-in-law. In 1974 Watson was appointed to a personal Chair in Geology at Imperial College and on her retirement in 1983 became Professor emeritus and Senior Research Fellow.

Watson's professional and public responsibilities also included service as President of Section C of the British Association 1972, membership of the National Water Council 1973-1976 and service on project 86 of the International Geological Correlation Programme surveying the south western border of the East European platform. In connection with the latter she made a number of visits to East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

Watson's first geological research was undertaken as an undergraduate at Imperial College on the Moine metamorphic rocks of the Strath Kildonan area in Scotland. This was followed by her postgraduate work with John Sutton on the Lewisian granite of north west Scotland. This research, which identified two successive Pre-Cambrian tectonic provinces, initiated a new stage in studies of Lewisian rocks and Watson continued to work on Lewisian rocks during her tenure of the 1851 Senior Research Fellowship. From this developed a more general study of the geology of northern Scotland, with which Sutton was involved, but Watson moved on to study of the evolution of the Scottish Caledonides. This research was concentrated on the north east Scottish coast (Banffshire). In the later 1960s Watson returned to work on the Lewisian rocks of Scotland (with particular reference to the Outer Hebrides), and she and her research students collaborated with the Highlands Unit of the Institute of Geological Sciences (IGS, later British Geological Survey) on geological mapping of the Outer Hebrides. The late 1970s saw Watson move into new fields of research. She studied ore-forming processes as an aspect of Pre-Cambrian crustal evolution and from 1977 was involved with joint work with Jane Plant of the IGS on the regional distribution of uranium in relation to the structural evolution of northern Scotland. This work took the well-known technique of stream sediment sampling and used it for investigation of fundamental geochemical problems. In addition from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s Watson also undertook collaborative research with IGS staff on the effects of diagenesis and hydrothermal activity in the post-Caledonian evolution of Scotland.

In recognition of her contributions to geology the Geological Society of London awarded her the Moiety of the Lyell Fund (jointly with Sutton) in 1954, the Bigsby Medal (again jointly with Sutton) in 1965 and the Lyell Medal in 1973. From 1982 to 1984 she was President of the Geological Society, the first woman to hold this office. In 1979 Watson was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society and was appointed a Vice President of the Society in 1983.

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.

Born in Stoke Newington, London, John Lucas Tupper was the son of the lithographer George Frederick Tupper. He attended the Royal Academy Schools from about 1844 and at the same time became an anatomical draftsman at Guy's Hospital, London. This not only provided an income but reflected his lifelong interest in science. Tupper remained working at Guy's until 1863 and two years later became master of drawing at Rugby School. His teaching at Rugby pioneered '...teaching art from the human form, as shown in the skeleton, the anatomical figure and the best antiques...'. The 'Athenaeum' considered him one of the ablest 'draughtsmen of the day' and that his experiment to make the study of drawing more than 'a genteel accomplishment' was 'fully attained'. In recognition of his achievements, Tupper was appointed curator of the museum at Rugby School.

Tupper was an early member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and was particularly close to William Holman Hunt (later godfather to one of his children) and to William Michael Rossetti who edited a published volume of his poems in 1897. Tupper was not only a poet but also contributed letters and articles on literature, art and art education to: 'The Germ'; 'Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature Conducted principally by Artists'; 'The Crayon'; and 'The Portfolio'. In 1866 he published under the name of "Outis" 'Hiatus, the Void in Modern Education, its cause and Antidote' (Macmillan). Demonstrating his versatility, Tupper also wrote an article 'On the Centre of Motion in the Human Eye' which was published in the 'Royal Society Proceedings', vol. 22 (1874), pp. 429-30.

His interest in science is reflected in the subjects of his work. In the 1850s and early 1860s Tupper made a number of portraits of his colleagues at Guy's Hospital. He was also commissioned (c.1858) to make a statue of Linnaeus for the Natural History Museum at Oxford designed by the Dublin based practice of Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward.

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.

Lewis Leigh Fermor was born in Peckham on 18th September 1880, the eldest of six children of a bank clerk. After gaining a National Scholarship to attend the Royal College of Science in 1898, Fermor began studying metallurgy with the aim of working at the Royal Mint. He was eventually encouraged to apply to the Geological Survey of India by Professor J W Judd, and departed for India in 1902.

There followed a long and successful career at the Geological Survey of India. In 1909, after discovering six manganese minerals, his report on the manganese deposits of the country earned him his DSc. During WW1 he assisted the Railway Board and the Indian Munitions Board, for which he received an OBE in 1919. He lead the surveying of the Archaean rocks of Madhya Pradesh both before and after the First World War. Although he officially became director of the Survey in 1932, he had previously acted as such for several years in the 1920s and from 1930 onwards. He retired from the directorship in 1935, but continued to live in India until 1939 as a consulting geologist.

Fermor eventually retired to Bristol, and died on 24th May 1954. His knighthood came in 1935, with other honours including the presidency of the Indian Science Congress (1933), first President of the National Institute of Sciences of India (1935), FRS (1934) and President of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (1951-1952). He became a fellow of the Geological Society in 1902, received the Bigsby Medal in 1921 for his earlier work on garnets, and served on Council from 1943-1947. He married his first wife, Muriel Ambler, in 1909, with whom he had two children (Vanessa and the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor) before divorcing, and his second wife, Frances Mary Case, in 1933.

William Hutton was born in on 26 July 1797 in Sunderland. He had little formal education, but by 1818 Hutton had joined the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne and in 1825 the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. By this time he had already become honorary curator of the George Allan Museum, which had been purchased by the Literary and Philosophical Society in 1822, and had began to amass his own collection of minerals and fossil plants.

He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1828, and the next year helped found the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne, of which he also acted as secretary and curator. From 1830 until 1835 he was also co-secretary of the Newcastle Literary, Scientific and Mechanical Institution and from 1835 served as one of its vice-presidents.

Hutton's major contribution was his work on palaeobotany, publishing The Fossil Flora, between 1831 and 1837 which was co-authored by John Lindley (1799-1865). His other significant contribution was his work on the nature of coal. The fossil plant Huttonia was named after him in 1837 by Sternberg in recognition of his achievements and in 1840 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.

By 1845, Hutton had also taken on the post of treasurer for the Natural History Society, the extra work possibly contributing to the breakdown in his health which occurred the following year. For the next few years he lived in Malta, returning to Britain in 1851. He later moved to West Hartlepool, becoming involved with the local Literary and Mechanics Institution and the plan to establish a museum at the Athenaeum. He died on 20 November 1860.

Etheldred Benett was born on 22 July 1775 at Pyt House, Tisbury, Wiltshire, the eldest daughter of Thomas Benett. The geologist and botanist Aylmer Bourke Lambert, her brother's wife's half brother, encouraged her and her sister Anna Maria to study natural history. Whilst her sister concentrated on botany, Benett took up the newly fashionable study of fossils.

By at least 1809, Benett had begun to acquire a significant collection of material. Her independent wealth (she never married) meant that she was able to collect high quality specimens from the many working quarries in the area, as well as from her holidays to the Dorset coast. Such was the importance of her collection that it became the first port of call for geologists studying the Wiltshire area. In addition Benett was in regular correspondence with geologists such as James Sowerby, George Bellas Greenough, Gideon Mantell and William Buckland, sent duplicate specimens to museums all over the country (including the Geological Society) and published books on her collection.

Her unusual first name and her achievements in what was perceived to be the masculine science of geology, meant that she was regularly mistaken for a man. For instance in 1836 the Natural History Society of Moscow made her a member but the diploma was ascribed to 'Dominum [Master] Etheldredus Benett'.

Benett died on 11 January 1845, and her collection was sold. The most important material is now held by the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia although a small portion of her collection remains in Leeds City Museum.

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.

The Rev Adam Sedgwick was born in 1785, at the vicarage of Dent, Yorkshire, the third of seven children of the vicar Richard Sedgwick. He attended the local grammar school, under the tutelage of his father, until he was 16 after which he was sent to Sedbergh Grammar School.

Sedgwick entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1804 where he chiefly read mathematics. He graduated in 1808 as 'fifth wrangler' [first class honours, 5th highest marks in the year], and gained his Fellowship from Trinity in 1810. Sedgwick's health broke down in 1813 due to a burst a blood vessel caused by a combination of overwork and unhappiness with his position. Whilst he did recover over the next few years, he continued to suffer from bouts of ill health throughout his life. In 1815 he became assistant mathematics tutor at Trinity, and was ordained the following year during which he also travelled for several months throughout Europe.

In 1818 he was elected Woodwardian Professor of Geology of the University of Cambridge, a post he held until his death in 1873. One of the odder duties of the chair, as set down in the will of its founder John Woodward in 1728, was to defend Woodward's views as to the nature and origin of fossils against the outdated attacks of Dr Rudolf Jakob Camerarius of Tübingen and his followers - a duty Sedgwick faithfully undertook in his inaugural lecture each year. The post was also allocated £10 a year to correspond in scientific matters with distinguished foreigners, with a view to adding to Woodward's fossil collection. Unlike the previous Woodwardian Professors, Sedgwick was expected to lecture on geology, a subject he admitted he knew little about at the time. Energetically throwing himself into the subject, he undertook his first geological field trip with John Stevens Henslow to the Isle of Wight in 1818, the findings from the excursion forming his first course of lectures. That same year he joined the Geological Society, going on to serve as its President between 1829-1831.

Sedgwick's first geological paper was on the physical structure of Devonshire and Cornwall, which was read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1820, an organisation of which he was also co-founder. Sedgwick continued with his summer field trips, learning much from Henslow and William Daniel Conybeare, and in 1828 accompanied Roderick Impey Murchison on a tour of Scotland. Murchison, whom Sedgwick met at the Geological Society, was less experienced than he, but they became close friends publishing a number of joint papers on the geology of Britain and Europe between 1828-1842.

By the late 1820s, Sedgwick's main focus was to complete a book on the strata below the Old Red Sandstone, and the majority of his papers over the next 20 years were essentially progress reports on the project. He travelled around the Lake District, Wales and the southern uplands of Scotland to investigate these older rocks. In 1831, a young Charles Darwin accompanied Sedgwick on a tour of north Wales, where Darwin gained his first training in the field.

Whilst Sedgwick was researching structures in north Wales, Murchison had began examining the younger and more fossiliferous strata of south Wales and the Welsh borders. Together, their work provided the foundations for a new classification of the oldest rocks with fossils - Sedgwick's strata were called the Cambrian, while Murchison's became the Silurian. This friendly arrangement was threatened by Henry De la Beche's discovery of Coal plants in rocks which appeared to be of the same age as those which Murchison and Sedgwick had been studying. The resulting controversy, in which the two friends collaborated closely, bore fruit in their 1839 announcement of the Devonian system as a distinctive period in earth history.

However, the creation of the Devonian effectively removed any distinctive fauna from Sedgwick's Cambrian. The problem was exacerbated when John Eddowes Bowman, Daniel Sharpe, and finally the official Geological Survey extended its work into Sedgwick's territory during the early 1840. Most of the strata which had been identified as being older than the Silurian proved to be of the same age. Almost all geologists followed Murchison in wiping the Cambrian off the map, ignoring Sedgwick's attempts to create alternatives to what he condemned as a grossly over-extended Silurian.

By the 1850s, with his book on the older rocks scarcely begun, Sedgwick argued the case for the Cambrian in increasingly intemperate language. He cut off links not only with Murchison, but also with the Geological Society (whose Wollaston medal he had been awarded in 1851) and the London geological community more generally. The controversy was settled only after Sedgwick's death. The discovery of a fauna below that of Murchison's oldest Silurians became the basis for a redefined Cambrian. The uppermost strata of Murchison's expanded system were called Silurian, and the strata in between were termed Ordovician.

The controversy between the once close friends has been marked by the Society, in its positioning of the busts of Murchison and Sedgwick. Both busts can be found by the main entrance, but on opposite sides.

Jean Louis Rudolphe Agassiz, was born on the 28 May 1807 in Môtier, Switzerland, where his father was the local pastor. Between 1824-1829, Agassiz studied medicine at the Universities of Zurich, Heidelberg and Munich, during which he developed an interest in zoology, particularly the study of European freshwater fishes. In 1828 he published his first paper on the subject - a description of a new species of the genus Cyprinus (carp) -but the following year saw the issue of 'Selecta genera et species piscium quos in itinere per Brasiliam annis MDCCCXVII-MDCCCXX …' which contained descriptions of the species of fish found by the German naturalists Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius during their expedition to Brazil between 1817-1820. On Spix's death in 1826, Martius had commissioned Agassiz to complete the work. However, it would be during Agassiz's research for his next planned work, a natural history of the freshwater fishes of Europe, when he began to compare the fossil forms found in Oeningen and Glarus, in Switzerland, and at Solnhofen, in Bavaria, that he would develop his lifetime's fascination with fossil ichthyology.

Louis Agassiz arrived in Britain during the autumn of 1834, having already received a welcome prize fund from the Geological Society to support him in his fossil fish researches, which he had been working on for two years (notably with the blessing of Georges Cuvier who had given Agassiz his research on the subject). George Bellas Greenough, the President of the Society, eager to help with such an important palaeontological and geological work, issued a call to the Society's Fellows to send examples of fossil fish to aid Agassiz and a room was set aside for the specimens to be copied. Agassiz's principal artist, the Austrian born Joseph Dinkel (c.1806-1891), spent his first few years in London splitting his time between the Society and the British Museum. Slavish copying was not the aim of the work. Instead the intention was to show the structure of fossil fish and, as Agassiz's classification system was primarily based on dermal features and appendages, the artist would emphasise the scales and fins in his drawings.

For the next decade, Agassiz continued to visit the palaeontological collections of Britain and Europe seeking out new specimens for his work. Those which were not sent to the holding centre of the Society or his publishing base at Neuchatel, Switzerland, were drawn in situ by one of Agassiz's commissioned artists. The cost of the research involved in such a major work, combined with the expensive colour printing techniques saw Agassiz accepting help from various friends and scientific figures of the time. Wealthy collectors such as Lord William Willoughby Cole (1807-1886), later the Earl of Enniskillen, and Sir Philip de Malpas Egerton (1806-1881) defrayed some of Agassiz's costs by having specimens from their fossil cabinets drawn by Dinkel at their own expense - the drawings becoming their property once Agassiz had had them copied onto lithographic stones. Despite this, Agassiz still had to sell his own natural history collection to the local authorities at Neuchatel to meet the high production costs, and with nothing left apart from the original artwork, which was of no further use once converted to lithographic images, these were next marked to be sold. Egerton originally approached the British Museum (Natural History) on Agassiz's behalf, but apparently meeting with little interest instead persuaded his brother, Lord Francis Egerton, later 1st Earl of Ellesmere, to purchase most of the drawings and paintings for £500 in 1843.

By the time the follow up volume 'Monographie des Poissons Fossiles du Vieux Grès Rouge' (1844-1845), had been issued Agassiz's interest had switched to other subjects such as his studies on glaciers and the ice age. In 1846 he left Europe for the United States where he widely lectured at the Lowell Institute, Harvard and Cornell Universities. Following a bout of ill health, Agassiz did briefly return to the study of Brazilian fish in the 1860s.

Agassiz died on 14 December 1873, aged 66.

Notes on artists: The majority of the drawings were undertaken by Agassiz's principal artist Joseph Dinkel, however there are a large number of drawings in the collection by others such Charles Weber (active 1831-1835) and his first wife Cécilie Agassiz née Braun (active 1831-1835). These other artists' contribution were usually of shorter duration than Dinkel's, for instance Sixtus Heinrich Jarwart and G A H Köppel appear to have worked for Agassiz only between 1836-1838, which is likely to coincide with the period when Dinkel had left Agassiz's service to pursue an opportunity to purchase a company in Munich which designed carriages. He changed his mind and returned to Agassiz's publishing base in Neuchatel in October 1837.

Brothers Joshua William and Francis Thomas Gregory were two of the five sons (another being Sir August Charles Gregory) born to Joshua Gregory, an army officer from Farnfield, Nottinghamshire. The family emigrated in 1829 after their father, who had been wounded in action, was granted land in the new Swan River Colony in Western Australia in lieu of a pension.

The Swan River Colony, on the Swan River, Western Australia, was a British settlement established in 1829. The area was later named officially as Western Australia after its first governor, Captain James Stirling RN, belatedly received his commission. Stirling served as governor until 1839, when he was succeeded by John Hutt.

William Kennett Loftus was born in Rye, Sussex in c 1821. He was educated at Newcastle Grammar School, a school in Twickenham and later at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge where he did not take a degree. Loftus' interest in geology may have been inspired by the lectures of Prof Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian Professor at Cambridge, certainly it was Sedgwick who proposed Loftus as a Fellow of the Society in 1842.

Sir Henry De la Beche, Director of the Geological Survey, recommended Loftus to Lord Palmerston for the post of geologist on the staff of Sir William Fenwick Williams on the Turco-Persian frontier commission. This joint commission, consisting of representatives appointed by the British, Russian, Turkish and Persian governments, was charged with defining the border between Turkey and Persia [now Iran], the work which it undertook between 1849-1852.

The publication of the paper was delayed due to a bout of ill health and Loftus' absorption in his archaelogical digs around the biblical cities of Mesopotamia. In 1855, Loftus was appointed to the Geological Survey of India however his health, already weakened from a fever which he developed in the swamps of Assyria, completely broke down due to sunstroke. He died on the return voyage aboard the Tyburnia on 27 November 1858 from the effects of an abscess of the liver.

Louis Albert Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1786. His father Jacques Necker was a professor of botany and local magistrate, his mother Albertine was the daughter of the famous alpine geologist and naturalist Horace Benedict de Saussure.

Necker moved to Scotland in 1806 to study at the University of Edinburgh, where he attended the lectures of Robert Jameson, Professor of Natural History and a Wernian. Whilst based in Edinburgh, Necker undertook a series of tours around Scotland, including visits to Fife, Berwickshire, Arran and the Isle of Skye. The result of the tours was the construction of the earliest known geological map of the whole of Scotland, influenced by Huttonian and Wernian principles, which he presented to the Geological Society in 1808.

In 1810, Necker returned to Geneva to become Chair of Mineralogy and Geology but continued to make extensive geological tours. After the death of his mother in 1841, Necker returned to Scotland, settling in the town of Portree on the Isle of Skye. He died on 20 November 1861.

Searles Valentine Wood jnr, was born on February 1830 at Hasketon, Suffolk. His father, Searles Valentine Wood senior (1798-1880), was a keen geologist and his only child followed in his footsteps, working with him on fossiliferous Eocene deposits Hordle cliff, Hampshire, as early as 1843.

Wood attended King's College School (the grammar school which was once attached to King's College London) between 1839-1843 and continued his education in France until 1845. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1851, but after practising law in Woodbridge, Suffolk for a number of years, gave it up to purse geology full-time.

Wood's main focus of interest was on tertiary and post-tertiary geology, and is best known for his study of glacial beds and deposits on which he published nearly sixty papers, many in conjunction with his friend Frederic William Harmer. Although a virtual invalid for the last ten years of his life, he continued to study and to submit papers for publication right up to his death on 14 December 1884.

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.

Lucas Barrett was born on 14 November 1837 in London. He was the eldest son of George Barrett, an iron-founder of 247 Tottenham Court Road. In 1847 he was sent to school in Royston, Hertfordshire, where he collected fossils from the local chalk pits as a hobby. He transferred to University College School, in Gower Street, London, in 1851 but during the holidays he would stay with relatives in Cambridge and it was there he made the acquaintance of Adam Sedgwick for whom he would later work as Curator at the Woodwardian Museum in Cambridge between 1855-1859.

It was during Barrett's time as Woodwardian Curator that he published his geological map of the Cambridge. First issued in 1857, it was reprinted a number of times over the years.

Barrett was elected Fellow of the Geological Society in 1855.

Son of the civil engineer, Sir John Hawkshaw (1811-1891), John Clarke Hawkshaw was born on 17 August 1841 in Manchester. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in the Mathematical Tripos. Between 1865-1868 he was a pupil of his father, and later Assistant Engineer, during the construction of the Albert Dock, Hull. In 1870 he became a partner in his father's civil engineering firm, which he continued after his father's retirement in 1890.

Hawkshaw was a member of various scientific societies, including the Geological Society, and notably served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1902-1903. He died on 12 February 1921.

John Robert Mortimer was born on 15 June 1825 in Fimber, a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at the village school in Fridaythorpe. He started a business as a corn merchant in Fimber, later moving to Driffield where he remained for the rest of his life.

Mortimer's interest in scientific enquiry was inspired by the Great Exhibition of 1851. Later visits to Edward Tindall's archaeological and geological collections at Bridlington spurred him to develop a collection of his own, indeed he purchased one of his first specimens from Tindall. At first he collected chalk fossils and flint implements from the Yorkshire wolds, training the local farm workers to recognise any potential specimens for himself and the small band of other collectors in the neighbourhood. However competition for collecting grew with other enthusiasts descending on the area and paying the same farm workers to find material for them instead. Faced with a dearth of material, particularly those which were archaeological in nature, Mortimer turned to excavation himself - concentrating on Bronze Age burial mounds.

Concerned that other local collections were being sold to or broken up by collectors outside of the area, Mortimer offered his collection at half its value to East Riding county council. The local council were not keen, but with the aid of Colonel G H Clarke the collection was purchased in its entirety in 1914, where the majority of it is still held by Hull Museum. Mortimer died in 1911.

Thomas George Bonney was born on 27 July 1833 in Rugely, Staffordshire, the eldest of ten children of the Revd Thomas Bonney, headmaster of Rugely grammar school. He attended St John's College, Cambridge, and subsequently studied for holy orders. Though never studying geology formally, he taught the subject at his old college from 1868 onwards, inspiring and encouraging many students who went on to become leading geologists. From 1877 he also took on the role of geology academic at University College London (UCL). Moving to London in 1881 to concentrate on his work as assistant general secretary of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he stayed there for a number of years until, retiring from his post at UCL, he returned to Cambridge in 1905 and resumed teaching at St John's.

Bonney wrote and published prolifically, in the form of academic works, popular books, and newspaper articles, as well as theological lectures and sermons. Valuing fieldwork, his geological interests included mineralogy, petrology (especially ultrabasic rocks and metamorphism), and glaciation studies. He was also a skilled artist and a keen alpine mountaineer.

He was a leader in many societies, being president of the Mineralogical Society (1884-1886), the Alpine Club (1883), and the British Association (1910), and vice-president of the Royal Society (1898-1899). He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1860, serving as secretary (1878-1884) and president (1884-1886), and remained so until his death on 9 December 1923.

John MacCulloch was born in his grandparents' house in Guernsey on 6 October 1773. The third of eight children of James MacCulloch, a wine merchant, and Elizabeth de Lisle, the young MacCulloch was sent to schools in Cornwall between 1778-1790, before enrolling as a medical student at Edinburgh University in 1790. Whilst there he also read chemistry under Joseph Black and natural history under John Walker. MacCulloch graduated with an MD in 1793, but the following year his postgraduate studies were cut short by his parents' internment during the French Revolution.

MacCulloch became a surgeon's mate in the Royal Artillery on 15 August 1795, and by 1803 had risen to assistant surgeon. He was then drafted into the ordnance chemical department, becoming ordnance chemist in 1806 and retiring from the army with a small pension. He received his licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1808, and set up a private medical practice in Blackheath, south east London but had to give it up when ordnance duties demanded prolonged absences for geological surveys. He still, however, managed to be appointed physician to Prince Leopold, later king of the Belgians, in 1820. MacCulloch's main contribution to the field of medicine was his writings on fever, notably his work on malaria in the late 1820s.

MacCulloch's burgeoning interest in geology can be traced back at least to the early 1800s, notably on his tours of the Lake District (1805) and the west country (1807), when he visited mines and noted down comments on local rocks in his diary. He was elected a Member of the Geological Society on 5 February 1808, and his paper on the geology of the Channel Islands, opened the first issue of the Society's 'Transactions' in 1811.

In his search for silica-free limestone for millwheels, MacCulloch conducted geological surveys in Wessex, Wales, and Scotland, between 1809-1813, and then from 1814-1821 acted as geologist to the ordnance trigonometrical survey during which he had surveyed hundreds of Scottish peaks and produced a geological map of west Scotland. However this intense survey work affected his health, and in 1821 he developed an enlargement of the spleen. Although he returned to work in 1822, his consitution remained affected thereafter.

Between 1816-1820, MacCulloch served as president of the Geological Society and in 1820 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. When in 1824, the chemical department of the ordnance was abolished, the now retired MacCulloch instead spent his summer field seasons surveying Scotland for the geological survey. Essentially MacCulloch became the first government sponsored geological surveyor in Britain, a move which was controversial as it cost the Treasury over £1000 per annum. Despite suffering a stroke in 1831, MacCulloch still managed to draft the final reports and map before his death four years later, his geological map Scotland being issued posthumously in 1836. Although criticised for topographical and geological inaccuracies, the map was not superseded for many years.

MacCulloch was a prolific scientific author, writing not only on geology, medicine and chemistry but on varied subjects such as methods of transferring the habitat of saltwater fish to freshwater and horticulture. His most noted geological works were 'A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland' (1819), 'A Geological Classification of Rocks' (1821), 'The Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland' (1824) and 'The System of Geology' (1831). MacCulloch's 'Proofs and Illustrations of the Attributes of God' which connected theology and geology was published by his widow in 1837.

He married Louisa Margaretta White on 6 July 1835, but on whilst on honeymoon in Cornwall was thrown from his carriage and suffered severe leg injuries. Despite an operation to amputate his leg, John MacCulloch died on 20 August 1835.

James Mitchell was born on 15 January 1787. Details of his early life are sketchy, but it is known that he attended King's College, Aberdeen, graduating with an MA in 1804. He might have made a tour of France and Italy before settling in London the following year, working as a schoolmaster and private tutor. Mitchell then gained employment with the Star Assurance Company, becoming the company secretary until its dissolution in 1822. He was later appointed to a similar position with the British Annuity Company.

From 1813, Mitchell published a number of works on scientific topics, including astronomy, chemistry, natural history and geology. By the 1830s his principle interest was to become the geology and botany of London and the south east. Although he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1832, only a few brief abstracts of his papers appeared in the 'Proceedings'. Mitchell complained to Dr Henry Woodward that "a certain set of elder brethren, members of the Council and ex-members, who monopolise as much as they can, both the 'Transactions' and in the speaking at the Society; and a new man has to fight his way through them." Therefore the majority of his observations remained in manuscript form.

Mitchell served on a number of parliamentary and royal commissions, and it was whilst acting as a sub-commissioner into children's employment (1840-1843) that he suffered a stroke in June 1843, possibly brought on from over work. Never fully recovering, he died of apoplexy at the home of his nephew on 3 September 1844.

Nathaniel John Winch was born on 20 December 1768 at Hampton, Middlesex. He was apprenticed to Robert Lisle, hostman, in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1780. Winch developed an interest in the study of botany, particularly the geographical distribution of species around the Northumberland, Cumberland and Durham areas. Indeed his devotion to the subject was considered to be behind the failure of his merchant businesses in 1808 when he was declared bankrupt.

He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1803, became an honorary member of the Geological Society in 1808, and was an active member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle. He died on 5 May 1838, leaving his manuscripts, library and herbarium to the Linnean Society. His valuable mineralogical collection was left to the Geological Society.

John Percy was born in Nottingham on 23 March 1817, the son of a solicitor. Initially studying medicine in Paris and Edinburgh, followed by being elected physician in Birmingham, he became increasingly interested in chemistry, specifically metallurgy.

He gave up medicine in 1851 to lecture in metallurgy at the newly established Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, remaining there until the School moved to South Kensington in 1879. He wrote on many subjects, including medical science and social and political issues, as well as metallurgy. Intending to produce the first comprehensive work on metallurgy in English, he published four volumes between 1861 and 1880, but the work remained unfinished. He was highly regarded in his field, receiving awards such as the Bessemer medal from the Iron and Steel Institute (now IOM3) and the Albert Medal from the Royal Society of Arts, which was conferred on him two days before his death.

He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1851, serving on the Society's Council between 1853 and 1856, and died on 19 June 1889.

John Henry Cooke was born in Weymouth on 29 November 1862, and received his education at St Vincent de Paule Roman Catholic School, Liverpool, and St Mary's Training College of Catholic Teachers, Hammersmith, London. In 1887 he travelled to Malta to take up a post of teacher of English at the Valletta Lyceum. Cooke lived in Malta for seven years, founding an editing the journal 'The Mediterranean Naturalist' after becoming interested in the natural history of the island. He also made significant contributions to the understanding of the geology of Malta, publishing papers on the Tertiary Rocks and Pleistocene deposits of the island, and collecting fossils (which he donated or sold to various European museums).

Cooke was forced to leave Malta in 1894 due to his wife's poor health, but he still produced papers on the geology of Malta on his return to England for the next few years. He became an Inspector in the Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum, but when that department closed he was appointed Inspector of Schools in Shropshire and Wolverhampton.

Cooke was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment in July 1901, transferring to the 1st (Volunteer) Battalion, King's Shropshire Light Infantry (later 4th Battalion, King's Shropshire Light Infantry) in October the same year. He rose to the rank of Captain.

After his retirement from military service and until his death on 7 December 1933, Cooke continued to investigate and write about the prehistory of his local area.

The Society of the Sacred Heart had been founded in France by Madeleine Sophie Barat (1779-1865) in order to provide a sound academic education based on religious principles for Catholic girls, with a great importance placed on teacher training. The first English foundation of the Society was at Berry Mead Priory, Acton, in 1842, and in 1850, the foundation moved to Roehampton, where a school was established. In response to a need for Catholic teachers after the Education Act of 1870, a teacher training college for girls was established at Roehampton in 1874. This was only a temporary home, the nuns at the Roehampton convent providing accommodation for the College until it could move to its new home, 'The Orchards' in West Hill, Wandsworth. The acquisition of the property and the organisation of the College were the work of an eminent English nun, Mother Mabel Digby, the superior of the Roehampton community. Obeying the government requirement that a practising school be established in connection with the College, Mother Digby duly set up a 'poor' school at Wandsworth, which flourished and proved a great asset to the students and the pupils. Charlotte Leslie was appointed as the first Principal.
In 1894, Mabel Digby left Roehampton for Rome, and was succeeded by Reverend Mother Janet Stuart, who worked hard to improve the system of teacher training at West Hill, and also encouraged her nuns to further their own education, often by taking degrees. Teaching followed the requirements laid down by the Department of Education, but was also expanded to include cookery and needlework. She also recognised developments in the teaching of younger children.
By 1901, student numbers had risen to 104, and in recognition of this the Society acquired St Charles' College in St Charles' Square, North Kensington. Students and staff from the Wandsworth College took up residence in 1905, and took the name 'St Charles' College'. The College continued to thrive, with students taking part in local religious and secular organisations, mainly relating to family welfare. The 1920s saw a growing academic link between St Charles' and Bedford College, and the setting up of the London Training Colleges Delegacy in 1928 only intensified the links with the University of London.
The College was evacuated to Cold Ash, Berkshire, in 1939, where they were housed in the noviceship house of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary: it remained there until 1946. The houses at Roehampton and St Charles' Square were heavily bombed and suffered significant damage. In 1946, St Charles' was sold to the diocese, and the decision taken that the College should return to its birthplace at the Roehampton convent. It was renamed 'Digby Stuart College', in memory of Mabel Digby and Janet Stuart.
The post-war era was a time of expansion. Between 1946 and 1953, the College was slowly rebuilt both physically and academically. New buildings were erected, including the East and South wings, the new Science and Primary Education block, and the Harvey, Fincham and Richardson blocks. Academic studies were developed, and the College became one of the constituent colleges of the University of London Institute of Education, which came into operation in 1949. In 1963 the three-year course started, followed by the fourth year BEd course in 1968 and the post-graduate Diploma course in 1971. Student numbers rose. Plans to form a union of the four voluntary teacher-training colleges in the south-west of London began to take shape in the early 1970s, with the four acting as an academic unity to offer BA, BSc and B Humanities degrees, validated by the University of London, from 1974. The Roehampton Institute of Higher Education (RIHE) was formally incorporated in 1975, with each of the constituent colleges - Froebel, Whitelands, Southlands and Digby Stuart - retaining its own corporate identity. The title Roehampton Institute London was subsequently adopted.
Though its degrees were validated by the University of Surrey from 1985, full university status was achieved in 2000, when the Roehampton Institute formally entered into federation with the University of Surrey and became known as the University of Surrey, Roehampton.