Obituary notices

LEONARD HAWKES, a member of the Associationsince 1920, was born on August 6th. 1891, the son ofPhillip Hawkes, a Methodist minister, which explainshis Biblical knowledge and his religious agnosticism.He obtained his B.Sc. at Armstrong College, Newcas­tle, and later was awarded an 1851 Exhibition andworked under Brager, Goldschmidt and Hiltedahl inChrisyiana (Oslo). From 1915 to 1919 he first joinedthe Ministry of Munitions and then became a Captainin the R.A.M.C. in charge of a Water Tank Co. inFrance. On dernobilisation he worked briefly on theGeological Survey of Norway before returning toArmstrong College as Senior Lecturer. Then in 1921he was appointed Reader in Geology and Head ofDepartment at Bedford College, where he continueduntil his retirement in 1956, having been given thetitle of Professor in the University of London in 1948.In 1926 he married Hilda K. Cargill, who like herassociate Julia Ledeboer (later Davico) was a GeologyHonours student. Both contributed to his work inIceland.

Leonard was very active in societies; he was Secret­ary of the Geological Society from 1934-1942 andPresident in 1956-1958. His awards included theMurchison Medal (1946) and the Wollaston Medal(1962). He became President of the MineralogicalSociety in 1955 and was elected a Fellow of the RoyalSociety in 1952. He also served on committees of theInternational Geological Congress. His publicationswere not numerous and chiefly dealt with Icelandicgeology and mineralogical topics.

Pretence to Leonard was unacceptable, but with hisinnate courtesy and charm he could and did expressopinions which in another would have appeared out­rageous. He was fortunate in scarcely having a day'sillness in his life and had an inherent suspicion of themedical profession. It was ironical that he married thedaughter of an eye-specialist!

He is survived by his wife and son Brian.B.C.K.

RONALD SPILSBURY BARRON was not a famousmember of the Association. Since he joined in 1946he had attended only a small number of meetings andorganised one field meeting (to Pewsey Vale andDevizes in 1956, Proc. Geol. Ass., 68, 228-230), butthose like myself who were introduced to science byhim, and in particular to geology, owe him a debt thatis a joy to acknowledge.

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Having obtained geology degrees at both Cam­bridge and London in 1924, he took a post as physicsteacher at Dauntsey's School in West Lavington southof Devizes. His whole working life was spent there,and even when he retired he and his wife continued tolive within a few hundred metres of the school. Soquiet a career was accentuated by a retiring andreserved nature. Awkward in manner and stiff in gait,he was for many years nervous of boys and success­fully maintained discipline with younger ones by keep­ing his distance, but older boys developed an affinityand affection with the recognition, albeit uncon­sciously, of a brilliant teacher. It was not just hisability to explain the difficult, it was his training inexperimental work that went all the way from designof the experiment, through manufacture of the ap­paratus and an appreciation of its limitations, to awritten record that had to be clear enough for anyreader to follow. The value of such teaching is hardlylimited to physics and the same qualities were found inhis geology teaching which was available to any boywho was interested, but this really only got going inthe forties, when he was a pioneer in the introductionof geology as an A-level subject. Like many naturalteachers, he could teach any subject that interestedhim: music or carpentry, and every ball game fromrugger to golf.

In his later years, and especially after his retirement,Ronald Barron gave his services as a geologist to theWiltshire Natural History Society. Numerous fieldmeetings led to his book The geology of Wiltshire-afield guide, published in 1976. Wiltshire's geology hasbeen relatively neglected except in specialist papersbecause, as Ronald Barron pointed out, it is one of thefew counties in southern England that has no coastlineand is not contiguous with Greater London. Unfortu­nately his publishers were not willing to include de­tailed records of sections, many now lost, but this islikely to remain the only general account of the geol­ogy of Wiltshire for many years. If the geologicaldetail is limited, the importance of geology to thecommunity is thrust on the reader in every chapter.The colour of buildings, the position and growth ofvillages in the past, the problems of planning controlsto-day, the origin of sunken lanes or a phrase like'Chalk and Church' are explained as much as moreconventional geological controls on scenery and vege­tation. This is a book by a whole scholar and ensuresthat Ronald Barron will be remembered long after hismany pupils are themselves dead.

J.M.H.