Folk Fae Fife

The Fife Science Festival

Before the known world was limited by land travel, map makers used to draw fierce-looking beasts at the far edges of their maps beyond Scotland and Ireland. In the margins they would write “beyond this point there will be dragons”. On this page, you will find no dragons but geographers and geoscientists who explore our world, as it is now and how it came to be. 

Much of the content of this page is taken from R.A. Batchelor’s Historical Geoscientists at St Andrews, 2006. To learn more about the history of Geology at St Andrews, click here and for a look at what research is being conducted currently at the University of St Andrews, click here.

E-mail:

folkfaefife@st-andrews.ac.uk

Robert Chambers, LLD

Famous for publishing the Chambers’ Encyclopaedia, this St Andrews resident published anonymously “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation” in 1844, which was a scandalous suggestion that humans could have developed from simple organisms prior to Charles Darwin’s On the Origins of Species (1859). Chambers defended Darwin.

· 1802-1871, University of St Andrews lecturer

Sir David Brewster, LLD, FRS

Eminent physicist, Brewster was a pioneer in optical crystallography and mineralogy. He invented the kaleidoscope in 1816. He discovered Gmelinite, Levyne and Epistilibite, all zeolites, and the mineral Brewsterite is named in his honour. “A refracted beam of light is plane-polarized if the reflected and refracted beams are perpendicular to each other” is Brewster’s Law.

· 1781-1868, University of St Andrews Professor

Known widely as a glaciologist, he published Illustrations of the Viscous Theory of Glacier Motion in 1846. He also experimented with the properties of minerals when exposed to heat. Forbes was Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh from 1833 to 1859. He published Theory of Glaciers (1859) upon arriving at St Andrews as Principal.

James David Forbes, LLD, FRS

· 1808-1868, University of St Andrews Principal (1859-1868)

Charles Lapworth, LLD, FRS

Born in Faringdon, Berkshire, Lapworth came to Fife as an Assistant English Master of Madras College in St Andrews. Whilst based in Fife, he mapped the rocks of the Southern Uplands of Scotland, which was described as “one of the miracles of science”. He coined the term ‘Ordovician’ as the time between the Cambrian and Silurian periods. He was a Royal Medallist of the Royal Society (1891) and served as president of the Geological Society of London.

· 20 September 1842 – 13 March 1920, Madras College, St Andrews

· 1826-1897, University of St Andrews  Professor of Chemistry

Heddle’s The Mineralogy of Scotland appeared in 1901. A founding member of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain & Ireland, he also was President of the Geological Society of Edinburgh & encouraged the extension of the Geological Survey to Scotland. His collections are at the Royal Scottish Museum, the Bell Pettigrew Museum and the Hunterian Museum.

Matthew Forster Heddle MD

George Martine, MD, FRS

Martine was a surgeon and physician in St Andrews, but he made significant contributions to geosciences by his observations of cave temperatures. He noted that temperature increased at greater depths. In a collection of essays published posthumously in 1780 he wrote “...it would seem the body of the earth has a very great proper internal heat…”. Martine was ahead of his time, which believed that the earth was part of God’s creation, and thus, unchangeable.

· 1702-1741, St Andrews

John McDouall Stuart

Stuart is the most accomplished and famous of all Australia's inland explorers. Many places in Australia are named for the Fifer born in Dysart. Trained as a surveyor, he gained a reputation for accuracy. With little more than a compass he ventured into unexplored arid lands and discovered important watering holes, including what is now known as Stuart’s Creek.

· 7 Sept 1815 – 5 June 1866, Dysart

Currrently Hawkesworth is Deputy Principal and Vice-Principal (Research) of the University of St Andrews. His primary research interests are as an isotope geochemist who has worked to identify the evolution of the earth’s crust and mantle as well as the rates of other natural processes. He taught at Bristol University before coming to St Andrews.

Professor Chris Hawkesworth, FRS

· living, University of St Andrews Deputy Principal (since 2009).