Thomas Henry Holland

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Sir Thomas Henry Holland (born November 22, 1868 in Helston , † May 15, 1947 in Surbiton , Surrey ) was a British geologist and university professor who was temporarily director of the Geological Survey of India .

Life

Holland was one of the eight children of John Holland and Grace Treloar Roberts. He completed his school days in his hometown of Helston. Afterwards, Holland studied from 1884 at the Royal College of Science in South Kensington , where he graduated in geology in 1888 with excellent results. This was followed by an assistantship at Owens College in Manchester .

In 1890, at the age of 21, he went to India with stops in the United States , Canada and the Far East and was hired as an assistant in Calcutta at the Geological Survey of India (GSI), the country's highest geological agency. His activity as curator of the geological museum and laboratory began in October 1890. In Calcutta, he taught geology at the Presidency College from 1892 . During this time he dealt with the until then hardly examined crystalline rock of St. Thomas Mount , which occurs over a large area in India, but is less common in other parts of the world. The special mineral composition of the rock was already noticed by Thomas Oldham , the first director of the Geological Survey of India . Holland observed that this rock had been used for the tomb of Job Charnock (1630–1692), the founder of the city of Calcutta. He presented his results in 1893 at a meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal . Because he recognized the rock as a representative with its own petrographic characteristics, he named it Charnockite . Its first scientific description in this regard dates back to 1900.

In 1893 (2nd edition 1898) Holland published in the Manual of the Geology of India as the first volume of the Economic Geology series his work on corundum and its precious stone varieties with the sites in India and neighboring areas. The publication describes the deposits and the lithological relationships between their occurrences. The representations deal with traditional as well as modern uses and processing of the mineral. The explanations supplement several card inserts.

Between 1903 and 1909, Holland was director of the Geological Survey of India . From 1922 to 1929 he was the rector of Imperial College in London . Between 1929 and 1944, Holland was Principal of the University of Edinburgh .

From 1913 to 1923 he published the series Provincial Geographies of India (Cambridge University Press).

Appreciations and functions

Selected publications

  • The Charnockites Series, a Group of Archean Hypersthenic Rocks in Peninsular India . In: Memoirs of the Geological Society of India, Vol. 28 (1900), pp. 119-249

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ TH Holland: Corundum . In: Manual of the Geology of India, Part I, Calcutta 1893, 79 pages
  2. ↑ List of honorary doctorates from the University of Calcutta ( Memento of the original from December 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.caluniv.ac.in
  3. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 20, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Holland, Thomas Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British geologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Helston , Cornwall
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1947
Place of death Surbiton, Surrey