John Walter Gregory, 1864 - 1932

Abstract

John Walter Gregory was born in London on January 27, 1864, and received his early education at Stepney Grammar School. The son of a wool merchant, he embarked on a business career in the City of London, but at the same time continued his scientific studies and graduated in the University of London. His ambition to adopt a scientific career was attained in 1887 when he was successful in the competition for an Assistantship in the Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural History). Keenness for travel led to his undertaking expeditions, first (in 1891) to the Rockies and Great Basin of North America, and later to the West Indies. Already in his early years at the British Museum his capacity for work showed itself in Museum publications. He produced three volumes of the “ Catalogue of Fossil Bryozoa ” in 1896, 1899 and 1909, and published elsewhere the “ Jurassic Corals of Cutch ” in 1900, and a paper on Cainozoic Echinoids in the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association. Meanwhile, he was lent by the Museum as Naturalist to a large expedition to British East Africa in 1892, sent out to explore the northern part of what is now Kenya Colony. After starting up the Tana River, the expedition was unfortunately wrecked by transport difficulties and dissensions, but Gregory (who never knew the meaning of “ a lost cause,” whether the expression was applied to an ill-fated expedition or an abandoned geological theory) reorganized the venture, notwithstanding that he was stricken with fever. With a party of 40 natives, himself the only white man, he conducted a private expedition up country, covering a distance of 1,650 miles in a little less than five months. He made observations on the ancient glaciers of Mt. Kenya and all but accomplished the first ascent of that mountain ; he studied the lava-fields and the tectonic features of the immense trough (which he termed the Great Rift Valley) and the neighbouring highlands. The results of this journey showed themselves in a never-flagging interest in Colonial policy and racial problems in Africa.