Geology behind barbed wire: James Alfred Richardson (1914–2007) and the Richardson Award of the Geologists’ Association

Abstract

The Richardson Award, for the best paper published annually in the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, was established in 1996. This paper describes the life of the Richardson family: James (‘Jim’) Richardson, the instigator of the Award, his wife Doris and their only son, Gwyn (who died in infancy). The focus is mainly on Richardson's education in the United Kingdom and early career as a field and mining geologist with the Geological Survey Department of the Federated Malay States (Malaysia) and how, having been caught up in WWII, he and his geological colleagues kept thoughts of geology alive during their time as Prisoners of War under the Japanese in Singapore, Thailand and Burma (1942–45). One of the relatively few survivors of the infamous ‘Death Railway’, his subsequent career as a petroleum geologist in the Netherlands, Venezuela, USA and Australia; and as a geologist involved in mineral exploration, artist and local historian in Australia is also described.