Albert Ernest Kitson

Sir Albert Ernest Kitson (born March 21, 1868 in Manchester , † March 8, 1937 in Beaconsfield , Buckinghamshire ) was a British-Australian geologist .

Life

Kitson grew up in India ( Nagpur ) and from 1876 in Victoria (Australia) , where his parents moved, both of whom were school teachers. His father died in 1879 and his mother then ran the school that Kitson attended. Kitson became a government employee in 1886, first with the post office, then with the land survey, and finally in 1896 with the mining department. He also studied geology at the Polytechnic and University of Melbourne and joined the Geological Survey of Victoria, where he rose rapidly. In 1904 he became a Senior Field Geologist. At times he also held the position of director. His main task was to search for coal and oversee coal and gold mining. He attended scientific congresses of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science and published articles on geology and natural history in various Australian journals.

In 1906 he went to the south of Nigeria as a senior prospector , where he discovered coal deposits near Enugu in 1909 . 1913 to 1930 he headed geological survey (Geological Survey) and prospecting in Ghana (Gold Coast), where he worked with his Australian colleague Edmund Thiele (1874-1971, later Edmund Oswald Teale). There they discovered manganese and bauxite deposits, important for the supply of England during the First World War, and in 1919 the first diamonds. He was also the first to suggest the use of hydropower in Ghana. In 1930 he retired to England, lived in Beaconsfield and was a consulting geologist for the Colonial Office and mining companies, especially for the Africa area. For example, he advised the government of Kenya in the gold rush of the 1930s.

He was considered a tireless worker who adhered to strict discipline. He was also religious and a teetotaler. Experience in dealing with poisonous snakes, which he acquired in Australia, also gave him a reputation as a healer on the Gold Coast with the natives. He was married twice and had two sons and a stepson.

In 1927 he received the Lyell Medal . He was CBE (1918), KBE (1927) and thus ennobled and CMG (1922). In 1897 he became a Fellow of the Geological Society of London . In 1929 he was President of the Geology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and from 1934 to 1936 of the Geologists Association.

Two eucalyptus species (one fossil, one recent) and a mollusc fossil are named after him. He himself collected tertiary fossils during his time in Victoria and advocated a nature reserve in the Buchan Caves, one of which is named after him.

Web links

• Australian Dictionary of Biography