Charles Lapworth
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
geologist
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
.
Biography
He was born at FaringdonFaringdon
Faringdon is a market town in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. It is on the edge of the Thames Valley, between the River Thames and the Ridgeway...
in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
(now Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
) and educated as a teacher at the Culham Diocesan Training College near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. He moved to the Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
border region, where he investigated the previously little-known fossil fauna of the area. There in 1869 he married Janet, daughter of Galashiels schoolmaster Walter Sanderson and stayed in the area. Eventually, through patient mapping and innovative use of index fossil analysis, Lapworth showed that what was thought to be a thick sequence of Silurian
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...
rocks was in fact a much thinner series of rocks repeated by faulting and folding.
Charles Lapworth completed this pioneering research in the Southern Uplands while employed as a schoolmaster for 11 years at the Episcopal Church school, Galashiels. He then studied geology and became in 1875 an assistant at Madras College
Madras College
Madras College is a secondary school in St. Andrews, Fife in Scotland.-History:Madras College, founded in 1832, takes its name from the system of education devised by the school's founder, the Rev Dr Andrew Bell....
in St Andrews. Fife, and then in 1881 the first Professor of Geology at Mason's College, later the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
, where he taught until his retirement.
He is best known for pioneering faunal analysis of Silurian beds by means of index fossils, especially graptolite
Graptolite
Graptolithina is a class in the animal phylum Hemichordata, the members of which are known as Graptolites. Graptolites are fossil colonial animals known chiefly from the Upper Cambrian through the Lower Carboniferous...
s, and his proposal (eventually adopted) that the beds between the Cambrian
Cambrian
The Cambrian is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from Mya ; it is succeeded by the Ordovician. Its subdivisions, and indeed its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's...
beds of north Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and the Silurian
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...
beds of South Wales should be assigned to a new geological period: the Ordovician
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...
. This proposal resolved a long running controversy which began when Roderick Murchison
Roderick Murchison
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet KCB DCL FRS FRSE FLS PRGS PBA MRIA was a Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system.-Early life and work:...
and Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...
argued over the relative ages of the strata in question. Lapworth received numerous awards for his research work, while for teaching he used the English Midlands as a setting for demonstrating the fieldwork techniques he had pioneered in his own research.
Following his researches in the Southern Uplands Charles Lapworth also devoted time to mapping near Durness
Durness
Durness is a huge but remote parish in the northwestern Highlands of Scotland, encompassing all the land between the Moine to the East and the Gualin to the West...
in Scotland's northwest highlands and was first to propose the controversial theory that here older rocks were found lying above younger, suggesting complex folding or faulting as a cause. Later Peach
Ben Peach
Benjamin Neeve Peach, FRS was a British geologist.He was born at Gorran Haven in Cornwall to Charles William Peach, an amateur British naturalist and geologist. Ben was educated at the Royal School of Mines in London and then joined the Geological Survey in 1862 as a geologist, moving to the...
and Horne
John Horne
John Horne was a Scottish geologist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1900. He was a pupil of Ben Peach....
were dispatched to the area and their monumental memoir proved Lapworth correct. In the English Midlands his research involved important work in Shropshire and the demonstration that Cambrian rocks underlay the Carboniferous rocks between Nuneaton and Atherstone.
His son Arthur Lapworth
Arthur Lapworth
Arthur Lapworth was a Scottish chemist.He was born in Galashiels, Scotland, the son of geologist Charles Lapworth and educated at St Andrew's and King Edward's School, Birmingham. He graduated in Chemistry from Mason College...
became a renowned chemist and his son Herbert a civil engineer, engineering geologist, stratigrapher and palaeontologist.
Honours and awards
Lapworth received many awards for his work and contributions to geology. In June 1888 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1891 was awarded their Royal MedalRoyal Medal
The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal, is a silver-gilt medal awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge" and one for "distinguished contributions in the applied sciences" made within the Commonwealth of...
. In 1899, he received the highest award of the Geological Society of London
Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...
, the Wollaston Medal
Wollaston Medal
The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...
, in recognition of his outstanding work in the Southern Uplands, and Northwest Highlands of Scotland.
The glacial Lake Lapworth
Lake Lapworth
Lake Lapworth existed in England in the Ice Age when ice from Wales and the north blocked the outlet of the River Dee near the site of Chester. The Dee backed up, forming Lake Lapworth, until it overflowed southwards and cut the Ironbridge gorge, permanently diverting part of the Dee drainage into...
, was named for him by Leonard Johnston Wills
Leonard Johnston Wills
Professor Leonard Johnston Wills – known as ‘Jack’ to friends and family – was one of the leading British geologists of his generation...
in recognition of his original suggestion of its existence in 1898.
Lapworth Museum
Papers relating to Charles Lapworth can be found at the University of BirminghamUniversity of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
Special Collections. The University of Birmingham also maintains the Lapworth Museum within the Aston Webb building on the main Edgbaston campus. The Lapworth Archive, housed in the museum, contains a remarkably complete record of all areas of his research work and teaching.