Obituary: Denys Barker Smith 1929-2007

Abstract

Denys Barker Smith was bom on 9th April 1929 in Wybun- bury, Cheshire, the son of James Ramsay Smith, the local village headmaster, and Ida Mary Smith, also a teacher. He attended his father's school from 1934–1940, and from 1940–1947 was a pupil at Nantwich and Acton Grammar School, Cheshire. There he excelled in geography and geology, inspired by his teacher, Mr Gowdridge, who encouraged his interest in maps, landscape and topography. These interests led Denys to study geology at the University of Birmingham, from where he graduated with First Class Honours in 1950. University was followed by National Service (1951–1953), during which, as a Captain in the Royal Engineers, he was responsible for compiling mobility maps. He remained on the reserve of Scientific Officers until 1964. In 1953, he joined the Geological Survey of Great Britain, being appointed as Scientific Officer and based in the Newcastle Office. Denys transferred to the Leeds Office of the Geological Survey in and remained there until 1976. During his early career, Denys was engaged primarily on the field survey of eastern Co. Durham, embracing the indus­trial areas of lower Tyneside, Wearside and Teeside and the intervening coalfield areas, working mainly on the Permian Magnesian Limestone on the Sunderland and Durham geological map sheets. In 1958, he published ‘Some Observa­tions on the Magnesian Limestone reefs of north-eastern Durham’ in the Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Great Britain , the first of over 70 papers published throughout his scientific career. He was promoted to Principal Geologist in steadily increasing his national and international repu­tation as an expert on the Permian rocks of north east England and maintaining a steady flow of papers on the subject. In 1961, he completed the survey of the Magnesian Limestone on the Stockton 1:50 K Sheet, and in 1965 …