Wallace (Wally) Spencer Pitcher FGS (3 March 1919 – 4 September 2004) was a British

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...

Career

Pitcher was born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and became interested in

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s in childhood. At 17 he started work as an assistant assayer, attending college part-time to study for a degree in Chemistry and Geology at Chelsea College, London, graduating after war service in 1947. Professor

Herbert Harold Read Herbert Harold Read Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS, Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE, Geological Society of London, FGS, (17 December 1889, in Whitstable – 29 March 1970) was a British geologist and Professor of Geology at Imperial Col ...

Imperial College Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a cultural district in South Kensington that included museums ...

offered him a post as a Demonstrator with the opportunity to study granite rocks in Donegal, and Pitcher, with his wife Stella Scutt, started in 1948 a 25-year programme of rock mapping in Donegal. He was promoted to Assistant Lecturer (1948) and then to Lecturer (1950–1955). He developed new procedures based on

colorimetry Colorimetry is "the science and technology used to quantify and describe physically the human color perception". It is similar to spectrophotometry, but is distinguished by its interest in reducing spectra to the physical correlates of color p ...

and flame-photometry which speeded up the rock analyses. In 1972 he published ''The Geology of Donegal: A Study of Granite Emplacement and Unroofing''. In 1955 he moved to

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

as Reader in Geology and then in 1962 to the George Herdman Chair of Geology at the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

where he remained until retirement in 1981. Whilst at Liverpool he took part in field surveys of the rocks in the

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

vian

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

. He held the post of Secretary (1970–1973), Foreign Secretary (1974–1975) and then President (1977–1978) of the

Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe, with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

, and awarded the Murchison Medal in 1979. He was a founder member of the

Institution of Geologists An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and ...

and their Aberconway Medallist in 1983. He wrote another book, ''The Nature of and Origin of Granite'' (1993); second edition (1997).

References

Biography
20th-century British geologists Murchison Medal winners Presidents of the Geological Society of London 1919 births 2004 deaths {{UK-geologist-stub