Wallace (Wally) Spencer Pitcher FGS (3 March 1919 – 4 September 2004) was a British geologist.

Career

Pitcher was born in London and became interested in fossils in childhood. At 17 he started work as an assistant assayer, attending college part-time to study for a degree in Chemistry and Geology at Chelsea College, London, graduating after war service in 1947.

Professor Herbert Harold Read of Imperial College offered him a post as a Demonstrator with the opportunity to study granite rocks in Donegal, and Pitcher, with his wife Stella Scutt, started in 1948 a 25-year programme of rock mapping in Donegal. He was promoted to Assistant Lecturer (1948) and then to Lecturer (1950–1955). He developed new procedures based on colorimetry and flame-photometry which speeded up the rock analyses. In 1972 he published The Geology of Donegal: A Study of Granite Emplacement and Unroofing.

In 1955 he moved to King's College London as Reader in Geology and then in 1962 to the George Herdman Chair of Geology at the University of Liverpool where he remained until retirement in 1981. Whilst at Liverpool he took part in field surveys of the rocks in the Peruvian Andes.

He held the post of Secretary (1970–1973), Foreign Secretary (1974–1975) and then President (1977–1978) of the Geological Society, and awarded the Murchison Medal in 1979. He was a founder member of the Institution of Geologists and their Aberconway Medallist in 1983. He wrote another book, The Nature of and Origin of Granite (1993); second edition (1997).^[1]^[2]

References

^ Pitcher, W. S. (1997). The Nature and Origin of Granite (2nd ed.). Chapman & Hall. ISBN 9780412758607.
^ Clemens, J. D. (1998). "Review of The Nature and Origin of Granite (2nd ed.) by W. S. Pitcher" (PDF). Mineralogical Magazine. 62 (2): 292–293. doi:10.1180/minmag.1998.062.2.01. S2CID 128609050.

Biography

v t e Presidents of the Geological Society of London
19th century	George Bellas Greenough Henry Grey Bennet William Blake John MacCulloch George Bellas Greenough Earl Compton William Babington William Buckland John Bostock William Fitton Adam Sedgwick Roderick Murchison George Bellas Greenough Charles Lyell William Whewell William Buckland Roderick Murchison Henry Warburton Leonard Horner Henry De la Beche William Hopkins Edward Forbes William Hamilton Daniel Sharpe Joseph Ellison Portlock John Phillips Leonard Horner Andrew Crombie Ramsay William Hamilton Warington Wilkinson Smyth Thomas Henry Huxley Joseph Prestwich George Douglas Campbell John Evans Peter Martin Duncan Henry Clifton Sorby Robert Etheridge John Whitaker Hulke Thomas Bonney John Wesley Judd William Blanford Archibald Geikie Wilfred Hudleston Henry Woodward Henry Hicks William Whitaker
20th century	Jethro Teall Charles Lapworth John Marr Archibald Geikie William Sollas William Watts Aubrey Strahan Arthur Smith Woodward Alfred Harker George Lamplugh Richard Oldham Albert Seward John Evans Francis Bather John Gregory Edmund Garwood Thomas Holland John Green Owen Thomas Jones Henry Hurd Swinnerton Percy Boswell Herbert Leader Hawkins William Fearnsides Arthur Trueman Herbert Harold Read Cecil Tilley Owen Thomas Jones George Lees William King Walter Campbell Smith Leonard Hawkes James Stubblefield Sydney Hollingworth Oliver Bulman Frederick Shotton Kingsley Dunham Neville George William Alexander Deer Thomas Westoll Percy Kent Wallace Pitcher Percival Allen Howel Francis Janet Watson Charles Holland Bernard Leake Derek Blundell Anthony Harris Charles Curtis R. S. J. Sparks Richard Hardman Robin Cocks
21st century	Ronald Oxburgh Mark Moody-Stuart Peter Styles Richard Fortey Lynne Frostick

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