Lewis Leigh Fermor

Lewis Leigh Fermor OBE ( born September 18, 1880 in Peckham, † May 24 1954 in Horsell, Surrey ) was a British geologist and the first president of the Indian National Science Academy.

Lewis Leigh Fermor is the father of the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Biography

Lewis Leigh Fermor was born in Peckham in south London, the son of a bank clerk. He studied at the Royal School of Mines, Metallurgy, supported by a scholarship.

He applied for a position with the Geological Survey of India in 1902 and went to India. He founded the geological research in India. His main areas of research were the Archean and igneous and metamorphic rock. He was curator of the geological collection of the Indian Museum in Calcutta.

In 1909 he received a Doctor of Science degree from the University of London awarded. He is the first to describe the mineral hollandite in 1906. Fermorit The mineral, which he discovered in 1910, was named after him. He was Superintendent of the Geological Survey in 1910 and received the Order of the British Empire awarded for his services to the Indian Railway Board and the Indian Munitions Board during World War II.

In 1921, the Geological Society of London awarded him the Bigsby Medal for his studies of grenades as geological pressure indicator that indicated what pressures had been exposed rocks. He was a founding member of the Mining and Geological Institute of India and in 1922 its president. From 1932 to 1935 he was director of the Geological Survey of India. He was trustee of the Indian Museum in 1930 to 1935, and was appointed in 1934 as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS ). In 1935, the knighthood he was awarded by the Indian government. In 1935, he was the first elected president of the National Institute of Sciences of India. After his resignation from the directorship at the Geological Survey in 1935, he continued to work mainly in India, but also visited Kenya and South Africa. In 1945 he became president of the Bristol Naturalists ' Society and was from 1945 to 1947 Vice- President of the Geological Society of London.