Royal School of Mines - Notable Past Students and Professors

Notable Past Students and Professors

• James Allen, New Zealand politician and diplomat.
• George Frederick Ansell, author of a standard work on the Royal Mint
• Sir Henry De la Beche FRS, founder of the British Geological Survey.
• Peter Baxendell, former Managing Director of Shell.
• Henry Francis Blanford, meteorologist and palaeontologist. Founding head of the India Meteorological Department.
• William Thomas Blanford CIE FRS, geologist, zoologist and naturalist. Geological Society Wollaston Medallist and President (1888).
• Henry Yorke Lyell Brown, Australian exploration geologist, noted for his work in Western Australia.
• Sir C. V. Boys FRS, experimental physicist.
• Frederic Creswell, mining engineer and Minister of Defence in South Africa
• Edmund Daukoru, Minister of Energy for Nigeria and former OPEC President (2006).
• Sir Edgeworth David FRS, Welsh-born Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer who led the first expedition to reach the Magnetic South Pole.
• George E. Davis, pioneer in the field of chemical engineering.
• George Mercer Dawson, Director of the Geological Survey of Canada (1895–1901).
• Nick Dommett, Professor of Globalisation, King's College London.
• Robert Etheridge, Junior, Anglo-Australian palaeontologist.
• Andy Fanshawe, mountaineer.
• Peter Francis, author and volcanologist.
• Sir Edward Frankland FRS, leading chemist and originator of the concept of valency.
• Sir Patrick Geddes FRSE, biologist, sociologist, philanthropist and pioneering town planner.
• Percy Gilchrist, British chemist and metallurgist who devised a standard method of making steel, with his cousin Sidney Gilchrist Thomas.
• Professor William Gowland FRS, British mining engineer and archaeologist. Known as the Father of Japanese Archaeology.
• Mohammed bin Hamad Al Rumhy, Minister of Oil and Gas in the Sultanate of Oman.
• Frank Hawthorne OC FRSC, Canadian mineralogist and crystallographer. Geological Association of Canada Logan Medallist.
• Arthur Holmes, British geologist and pioneer of radiometric rock dating. Geological Society Wollaston Medallist and Geological Society of America Penrose Medallist.
• Thomas Henry Huxley PC FRS, Professor of Natural History 1854–1885. Comparative anatomist; 'Darwin's Bulldog', author of Man's place in nature.
• John Wesley Judd, President of the Geological Society (1886–1888).
• Jeremy Leggett, social entrepreneur and author.
• Archibald Liversidge FRS, English-born Australian chemist, founder of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science.
• Rilwanu Lukman KBE, former Secretary General of OPEC.
• Lady Rachel MacRobert, philanthropist and founder of the MacRobert Trust.
• Sir Roderick Murchison KCB FRS, Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system. Royal Society Copley Medallist and Geological Society Wollaston Medallist.
• Richard Dixon Oldham FRS, Irish geologst who first identified seismic p- and s-waves and found the first evidence for the Earth’s core. President of the Geological Society (1920–1922).
• Benjamin Neeve Peach, FRS, geologist in the Geological Survey who resolved the formation of the Scottish Highlands.
• Sir Andrew Ramsay FRS, Scottish geologist and glaciologist. Geological Society Wollaston Medallist and President (1872).
• John Graham Ramsay, British structural geologist. Geological Society Wollaston Medallist.
• Sir Aurelian Ridsdale, politician and chairman of the British Red Cross Society (1912–1914).
• Herbert Harold Read, British geologist who performed much work on the origins of granite. Geological Society Wollaston Medallist.
• Professor John A. S. Ritson OBE DSO, international rugby player (England and the British Lions), decorated soldier, and mining engineer.
• Professor Douglas Shearman, British sedimentologist. Geological Society Wollaston Medallist.
• Sir Warington Wilkinson Smyth FRS, President of the Geological Society (1866–1868).
• William Johnson Sollas FRS, geologist and anthropologist. President of the Geological Society (1908–1910).
• George Reginald Starr DSO MC, mining engineer and Special Operations Executive officer.
• Ralph Tate, British-born Australian botanist and geologist. President of the Royal Society of South Australia (1878–1879).
• Sir Julius Vogel, Prime Minister of New Zealand (1873–1875).
• Professor George Patrick Leonard Walker FRS, mineralogist and volcanologist. Geological Society Wollaston Medallist and IAVCEI Thorarinsson Medallist.
• Professor Janet Watson FRS, igneous and metamorphic petrologist. First female President of the Geological Society (1982–1984).
• Sir Julius Wernher, German-born Randlord and art collector.
• Howel Williams, leading volcanologist.
• Peter Harding (Royal School of Mines), metallurgist and captured WWII pilot (1919–2006)
• George Ekem Ferguson, a Fante, in the then Gold Coast, who after his education at the RSM, went on to negotiate treaties in the upper savannah of the Gold Coast.