Thomas Allan (1777–1833) painted by JW Gordon

Thomas Allan of Lauriston FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soc ...

FSA FLS (17 July 1777 – 12 September 1833) was a British mineralogist.

Life

Allan was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore o ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, on 17 July 1777, the son of Robert Allan (1748–1818), a banker. He was educated at the

High School of Edinburgh The Royal High School (RHS) of Edinburgh is a co-educational school administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. The school was founded in 1128 and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland. It serves 1,200 pupils drawn from four feeder primar ...

and took up banking as profession; but he is remembered today for his contributions to mineral science. At an early age Allan became fascinated with

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ...

s and he began to accumulate a large mineral collection that was subsequently bequeathed to his son Robert Allan

. This collection was later incorporated into Robert Greg's, which was ultimately acquired by the

British Museum of Natural History The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1813, Allan was influential in securing a mineralogy post in the

Dublin Philosophical Society The Dublin Philosophical Society was founded in 1683 by William Molyneux with the assistance of his brother Sir Thomas Molyneux and the future Provost and Bishop St George Ashe. It was intended to be the equivalent of the Royal Society in Lond ...

for the German mineralogist

Karl Ludwig Giesecke Carl Ludwig Giesecke FRSE (6 April 1761 in Augsburg – 5 March 1833 in Dublin) was a German actor, librettist, polar explorer and mineralogist. In his youth he was called Johann Georg Metzler; in his later career in Ireland he was Sir Charle ...

(1761–1833). Allan was elected as Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

in 1805, his proposers being Sir James Hall, William Wright and

John Playfair John Playfair FRSE, FRS (10 March 1748 – 20 July 1819) was a Church of Scotland minister, remembered as a scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his book ''Illu ...

. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

in 1815. He served as Curator to the RSE 1812–20 and Treasurer 1821–33. In 1810, his contribution to mineralogy was acknowledged with a new mineral species from

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is ...

, being named "

Allanite Allanite (also called orthite) is a sorosilicate group of minerals within the broader epidote group that contain a significant amount of rare-earth elements. The mineral occurs mainly in metamorphosed clay-rich sediments and felsic igneous rocks ...

" in his honour by Thomas Thomson. His Edinburgh address in later life was 11 Royal Exchange. Allan died at Linden Hall at

Morpeth, Northumberland Morpeth is a historic market town in Northumberland, North East England, lying on the River Wansbeck. Nearby towns include Ashington, Northumberland, Ashington and Bedlington, Northumberland, Bedlington. In the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 ...

, England, on 12 September 1833. He is buried in St Cuthberts Churchyard in Edinburgh. His son, Robert Allan (1806–1863) was also a mineralogist.

Works

Allan contributed the "Diamond" article for the fifth edition of the ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The ( Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

'' as well as the work on mineralogical nomenclature ''An Alphabetical List of the Names of Minerals, at Present Most Familiar in the English, French, and German Languages, with Tables of Analyses'' (Edinburgh, 1805, followed by enlarged editions in 1808, 1814, and 1819).

References

*Anonymous., bituary of Thomas Allan ''Philosophical Magazine'', 3rd Series, 3 (1833), pp. 317–318. *Farrar, W.V. and K.R. Farrar., "Thomas Allan, mineralogist: an autobiographical fragment," '' Annals of Science'', 24 (1968), no. 2, pp. 115–20. 1777 births 1833 deaths Scottish mineralogists Fellows of the Royal Society Scientists from Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh {{UK-scientist-stub