HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE GEOLOGY

Abstract

( Lecture delivered at York , 20 th April , 1974) The philosopher Hegel once said that people, and especially politicians, never learn from history, implying apparently that they should. Whether you learn from history or not must depend on how much you know of it. I have long been of the opinion that in science teaching it is extremely important for an undergraduate to realize how the basic fundamentals of the science he is studying have been arrived at and how much of the scientific equivalent of “blood, toil, tears and sweat” have gone in the process of their establishment. Without this, I feel there is too great a tendency to take too much for granted. In those now distant days when I was actively engaged in teaching, I regularly ran a course of about ten lectures on the history of geology without any idea that this was something to be tested in a future examination. I am not here, however, to tell you how to teach geology but to take the state of Yorkshire geology as it is today and to try and show how the present prosperous position has been brought about in broad outline from the changes in the general educational atmosphere in the county, from industrial progress and from the impact of a few dominant pioneers. I shall try and pick out what may be regarded as milestones on this road to progress. I take it that the Council of this society regards 1974, the year when they become …