Stephen Robert Nockolds, FRS (10 May 1909 – 7 February 1990) was a geochemist, petrologist and winner of the

Murchison Medal The Murchison Medal is an academic award established by Roderick Murchison, who died in 1871. First awarded in 1873, it is normally given to people who have made a significant contribution to geology by means of a substantial body of research and ...

of the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

. Robert Nockolds was born at

St Columb Major St Columb Major is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Often referred to locally as ''St Columb'', it is approximately southwest of Wadebridge and east of Newquay Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 200 ''Newqua ...

, Cornwall, the son of Dr Stephen Nockolds, a surgeon of Brighton, and his wife Hilda Tomlinson. He was educated at

Ascham St Vincent's School Ascham St Vincent's School was an England, English Preparatory school (UK), preparatory school for boys at Eastbourne, East Sussex. Like other preparatory schools, its purpose was to train pupils to do well enough in the examinations (usually t ...

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...

and at

Felsted School (Keep your Faith) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Chris Townsend , r_head_l ...

where his interest in rocks already manifested itself. He then went to

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

and then took a PhD at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

. He became a Fellow of Trinity College, and lectured in petrology at Cambridge. In 1957 he became Reader in Geochemistry at Cambridge, and Emeritus Reader. In 1959 he became a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

, and was also an Honorary Fellow of the

Geological Society of India The Geological Society of India is based in Bangalore, India. Its flagship product is the ''Journal of the Geological Society of India (JGSI)''. Establishment As declared in the ''JGSI'', the society was established on May 28, 1958, to promote th ...

. In 1972 he retired from Cambridge and was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society. He published a leading work on petrology and a large number of papers in various journals as shown below. In 1932 he married Hilda Jackson (1909–1976) and subsequently after she died in 1976 he married Patricia Horsley (1923 – 10 July 2013) He was known to his friends as Nocky or Bob and whilst he didn't have children of his own he was affectionately embraced by Patricia's large family.

Works

*Nockolds, S. R. Petrology for Students (1978) *Nockolds, S. R. 1933 Some theoretical aspects of Contamination in Acid Magmas. Journ. Geol. xii, p. 563. *Nockolds, S. R. 1934. The production of normal Rock Types by Contamination and their bearing on Petrogenesis. Geol. Mag. lxxi, p. 31. *Nockolds, S. R. 1934. The contaminated tonalites of Loch Awe, Argyll. Q.J.G.S. xc, p. 302. *Nockolds, S. R. 1935. Contributions to the Petrology of Barnavave, Carlingford, I.F.S. 1, The Junction Hybrids. Geol. Mag. lxxii, p. 289. *Nockolds, S. R. 1940, Petrology of rocks from Queen Mary Land. Australasian Antarctic Exped. 1911–14. Sci. Repts. ser. A, 4, Geol. pt. 2, 15–86. *Nockolds, S. R. 1941. The Garabal Hill-Glen Fyne igneous complex. Q. J. geol. Soc. Lond., 96, 451–511. *Nockolds, S. R. & Mitchell, R. L. 1946. The geochemistry of some Caledonian plutonic rocks: a study in the relationship between the major and trace elements of igneous rocks and their minerals. Trans. R. Soc. Edinb., 61, 533–575. *Tilley C E & Nockolds S R dited byPart II Proceedings of Section a : Problems of Geochemistry UK 1950. Paper Covers . International Geological Congress. Report of the Eighteenth Session Great Britain 1948. *Nockolds, S. R. & Allen, R. 1953. The geochemistry of some igneous rock series. Geochim & Cosmochim Acta, 4, 105–42. *Nockolds, S. R. & Allen, R. 1954. The geochemistry of some igneous rock series ––II. Geochim & Cosmochim Acta, 5, 245–85. *Nockolds, S. R. & Allen, R. 1956. The geochemistry of some igneous rock series––III. Geochim & Cosmochim Acta, 9, 34–77. *Hutton, C. O. & Nockolds, S. R. 1978. The petrology of Nevis, Leeward Islands, West Indies. Institute of Geological Sciences, Overseas Geology and Mineral Resources 52:1–31.

References

1909 births 1990 deaths People from St Columb Major People from Brighton People educated at Felsted School Alumni of the University of Manchester Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge English geochemists Fellows of the Royal Society {{geologist-stub