Leonard Johnston Wills

Leonard Johnston Wills, called Jack, ( born February 27, 1884 in Erdington, Birmingham, † 1979 in Bromsgrove District ) was a British geologist and paleontologist.

Wills was the son of a factory owner. His great-uncle Alfred Wills was formerly President of the Alpine Club. He studied from 1903 at King's College, University of Cambridge geology. Thanks to the good deals in the Tripos examinations (1906, 1907) for natural sciences, he was in 1909 a Fellow of King's College, which he was until 1915. In the same year he began to map for the Geological Survey of Great Britain in Wales. In 1907 he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship and in 1909 the Walsingham Medal in Cambridge. In 1910 he received his master's degree at Cambridge ( where he was also in 1928 a D. Sc. Received ). In 1913 he was a lecturer at the University of Birmingham, where he also received a Ph.D. in 1920. In 1932, he appeared as a successor of William Bolton a position as Professor and Head of the Geological Institute. In 1949 he retired, but continued his research into old age.

He began his research with the description of the Keuper sediments in Bromsgrove in the Midlands and their fossils. One of his areas of interest were land-dwelling arthropods such as scorpions fossil of the Triassic or Eurypteriden of carbon. In addition to the Midlands, he also dealt with the geology of the Severn Valley ( Ironbridge Gorge ) and its interest in the Midlands of Geology stretched to the Quaternary ( such as the Ice Lake Lake Lapworth ). But he is known for his books on the geological history ( paleogeography ) of Britain and his monograph on coal deposits in the UK.

In 1936 he was awarded the Lyell Medal, and in 1954 the Wollaston medal. In 1976 he was Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of London.

He was married since 1910 with Maud Janet Ewing, with whom he had two children. In 1926 he acquired the estate Farley Cottage in Bromsgrove. The sale was later funded in Somerset the Leonard Wills Field Centre of the Fields Study Council in Nettlecombe Court.

Writings

  • Worcestershire. Cambridge University Press 1911, online version
  • On the Fossiliferous Lower Keuper Rocks of Worcestershire with Descriptions of some of the Plants and Animals Discovered Therein. Proc. Geologists Association, Volume 21, 1910, pp. 249-331
  • An Outline of the palaeogeography of the Birmingham Country. Proc. Geologistis Assoc., Volume 46, 1935, pp. 211-246
  • British Triassic Scorpions. British Palaentolographical Society, 1947
  • Palaeogeological Map of the Palaeozoic floor below the Permian and Mesozoic Formations in England and Wales. Geological Society 1973
  • Physiographical evolution of Britain. Edward Arnold, 1929
  • The palaeogeography of the Midlands. Liverpool University Press / Hodder & Stoughton, 1948
  • A Palaeogeographical Atlas of the British Isles. Blackie 1951
  • Concealed Coalfields. Blackie, 1956
  • A Map of the Lower Palaeozoic Palaeogeological floor below the cover of Upper Devonian, Carboniferous and Later Formations. Geological Society of London, 1978
Bromsgrove (District) Digital Object Identifier
506865
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