Clement Reid FRS (6 January 1853 – 10 December 1916) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...

and

palaeobotanist Paleobotany, which is also spelled as palaeobotany, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (paleogeogr ...

Life

Reid was born in London in 1853. His great uncle was

Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...

. His family circumstances meant he was largely self-taught but he was nonetheless able to join the

Geological Survey of Great Britain The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. The BGS h ...

in 1874 and be employed in drawing up geological maps in various parts of the country. In 1894 he was appointed Geologist and in 1901 District Geologist. He retired in 1913. He was particularly concerned with

tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

geological deposits and their paleontology, and is most renowned for the work he did on quaternary and

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58The Murchison Fund The Murchison Fund is an award given by the Geological Society of London to researchers under the age of 40 who have contributed substantially to the study of hard rock and tectonic geology. It is named in honour of Prof. Roderick Impey Murchison. ...

in 1886, won the

Bigsby Medal The Bigsby Medal is a medal of the Geological Society of London established by John Jeremiah Bigsby. It is awarded for the study of American geology. Recipients SourcThe Geological Society See also * List of geology awards * Prizes named afte ...

in 1897, was elected Fellow of the Geological Society in 1875, and was vice-president 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 ...

1913–1914. He was elected a Fellow of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

in 1888. In 1899 he was elected 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 ...

, his application citation reading: From 1899 to 1909, Reid undertook the analysis of archaeobotanical remains from the Roman town of Silchester. In 1913 he published his book "''Submerged Forests''" in which he postulated a drowned land bridge between eastern England and the European mainland. His conceptual map of what is now called "

Doggerland Doggerland was an area of land, now submerged beneath the North Sea, that connected Britain to continental Europe. It was flooded by rising sea levels around 6500–6200 BCE. The flooded land is known as the Dogger Littoral. Geological sur ...

" turned out to be remarkably close to the currently known reality. He died in

Milford-on-Sea Milford on Sea, often hyphenated, is a large village or small town and a civil parish on the Hampshire coast. The parish had a population of 4,660 at the 2011 census and is centred about south of Lymington. Tourism and businesses for quite pr ...

, Hampshire in 1916. He had married in St Asaph in 1897 Eleanor Mary Wynne Edwards. She became a fellow herself and won the

Lyell Medal The Lyell Medal is a prestigious annual scientific medal given by the Geological Society of London, equal in status to the Murchison Medal. This medal is awarded based on one Earth Scientist's exceptional contribution of research to the scientific ...

for her work after Reid died.

References

* Preece, R.C. & Killeen, I.J., 1995. ''Edward Forbes (1815-1854) and Clement Reid (1853-1916): two generations of pioneering polymaths.'' Archives of Natural History, 22: 419-435.

External links

* *
Chrono-Biographical Sketch: Clement Reid
at www.wku.edu {{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Clement 1853 births 1916 deaths Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Geological Society of London Scientists from London