George Harry Dury (11 September 1916 – 4 October 1996)
[James C. Knox, "Dury, George Harry (1916–1996)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2011]
Retrieved 11 March 2018
George Dury 1919-1996: an appreciation
, '' Australian Geographer'', Vol. 28, No 1, 1997. was an English geographer and hydrologist
Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and drainage basin sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydro ...
, who devised a model showing the relations between river discharge and other stream variables. His most widely read book was ''The Face of the Earth'' (1959).
Life
Dury was born at Hellidon
Hellidon is a village and civil parish about south-west of Daventry in Northamptonshire, England. The parish area is about . It lies – above sea level on the north face of an ironstone ridge, its highest point, at Windmill Hill, being so ...
, near Daventry
Daventry ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire unitary authority area of Northamptonshire, England, close to the border with Warwickshire. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census, Daventry had a populati ...
, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...
, the son of Harry Dury (1879–1961), an agricultural labourer then serving in the Royal West Surrey Regiment, and his wife, Harriett Emma, née Colledge (1882–1959). He attended the grammar school in Daventry, before taking a BA (1937) and a teacher's diploma (1939) as an external student of the University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...
. In 1937 he married Ina Gertrude Newton (1916–2005), daughter of George Lionel Newton, army pensioner, of Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire. They had a daughter, Helen.Guernsey
Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...
, in 1939, Dury and his family were evacuated before the German occupation. He was commissioned in the Royal Air Force in 1941 and assigned to photographic mapping. His mapping of Guernsey served also for his London University MA degree. His first post-war job was as a lecturer in geology and geography at Enfield Technical College in 1946–48. He then became a geography lecturer at Birkbeck College
Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public research university located in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' ...
, University of London (1949–62). Having retired to Risby near Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...
, Suffolk
Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...
, he died at the West Suffolk Hospital there in 1996.
Research
Dury's model is an extension of the Bradshaw model, which shows how river characteristics change from the upper course to the lower course of a river. Dury used a line graph and a logarithmic scale, plotting the discharge along the x-axis and the other stream variables along the y-axis. The latter included depth, width, velocity, slope (gradient) and friction ( Manning formula).
Dury's work on quantitative fluvial geomorphology
Geomorphology () is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features generated by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth's surface. Geomorphologists seek to understand wh ...
led to a temporary stay with the United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...
in 1960–1961 and co-authorship of the influential ''Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology'' (with Luna B. Leopold, M. Gordon Wolman, and John Miller, 1964). Dury's most widely read book was ''The Face of the Earth'' (1959), published by Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
.
See also
* List of rivers by average discharge
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dury, G.H.
1916 births
1996 deaths
Hydrologists