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Papers of Thomas Robertson

Collection Summary

Reference Code
GB 0582 Robertson

Date(s)
1924-1981

Extent and medium of the unit of description

1 metre

(4 boxes)

Existence and Location of Originals

This material is original.

Name of creator
Robertson | Thomas | 1892-1981 | assistant director, Geological Survey of Great Britain

Biographical History

Biographical History

Thomas Robertson (1892-1981) was Assistant Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and author and part author of 11 memoirs. He was principally interested in economic geology and minerals including coal, limestones, ironstones and barytes but he also worked on a variety of rocks from the precambrian era to recent times.

He studied mining engineering at Heriot-Watt College and obtained the associateship of the college in 1913, his course included university classes in geology under James Geikie. He later gained B.Sc. (Eng) degree (Lond) and Phd (Lond). He served during the First World War but was injured and discharged from the army. Upon returning to Britain, he was appointed temporary geologist to the Geological Survey in 1917 but left a year later to become the Official Geologist to Togo Land. He returned to the Geological Survey of Great Britain in 1920 where he was promoted to senior geologist in 1928 and in 1931 he returned to Scotland where he worked on schists and igneous rocks in the Shetland Islands and Skye, the coalfield area of Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch and limestone coal in Mid and East Lothian. In 1938 he was promoted to district geologist for the area from Chester to Cumberland and was in charge of the Manchester office. Three years later he returned to Scotland as District Geologist for the Lowlands. He remained in post until 1945 when he was appointed to become district geologist for the North East of England. He was promoted to Assistant Director in 1949 and remained in that post until his retirement in 1955.

He was involved in several publications including summaries of progress for Stafford and Market Drayton, Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton and Oakergates, and Birmingham and several pamphlets published during the Second World War. He was also the princpal author of Limestones of Scotland, (1949).

He was elected to the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy in 1912 and made a full member in 1922. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1944 and in 1956 was appointed President of Section C of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Scope and Content

Scope and Content

The Papers of Thomas Robertson consist of:

  • pamphlets, reports and maps relating to Togoland, the Scottish Council, Loch Broom and Ullapool (c1920-c1973)
  • correspondence, memoranda, notes and booklets relating to the Geological Survey of Great Britain, the northwest Highlands, the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, Edinburgh Geological Society, cambrian sediments, Loch Broom tectonics and petrography, (1924-1981)
  • correspondence, working notes and reports relating to BA degree (Newcastle) in the geology of coal mining, torridonian pebbles, Torran, nature conservancy and Clerk Maxwell Wegener tides (c1949-1980)
  • notes, reports and maps relating to the principles underlying geological mapping, interrelationships of faults and folds, Loch Maree, Loch Broom and Ullapool (c1960-1976)

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