Charles Lapworth - The University of Birmingham - Edgbaston, Birmingham, U.K. - Blue Plaques on Waymarking.com

A Blue Plaque for Charles Lapworth the eminent geologist who was the First Professor of Geology at Mason College, which became the University of Birmingham in 1900, located by the main entrance to the Lapworth Museum of Geology.

Charles Lapworth’s Blue Plaque is one of two Blue Plaques to the right-hand side of the main entrance to the Lapworth Museum of Geology.

The Plaque carries the following text:
"UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Charles Lapworth
undertook pioneering work
into the formation of
mountain belts
1882-1883”

“Charles Lapworth FRS was the first Professor of Geology at Mason College, and a highly significant figure across a wide range of geological fields including palaeontology, stratigraphy, tectonic and various aspects of applied geology.” (visit link)

“From 1881 to 1913 he held the newly established chair of geology and physiography at Mason College, Birmingham University. In 18832 be began excursions into the Durness-Eireboll region of the northwest Highlands, where he conducted a detailed study of the main geological features. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1888." (visit link)

"He is best known for pioneering faunal analysis of Silurian beds by means of index fossils, especially graptolites, and his proposal (eventually adopted) that the beds between the Cambrian beds of north Wales and the Silurian beds of South Wales should be assigned to a new geological period: the Ordovician. This proposal resolved a long running controversy which began when Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick argued over the relative ages of the strata in question. Lapworth received numerous awards for his research work, while for teaching he used the English Midlands as a setting for demonstrating the fieldwork techniques he had pioneered in his own research.

Following his researches in the Southern Uplands Charles Lapworth also devoted time to mapping near Durness in Scotland's northwest highlands and was first to propose the controversial theory that here older rocks were found lying above younger, suggesting complex folding or faulting as a cause. Later Peach and Home were dispatched to the area and their monumental memoir proved Lapworth correct. In the English Midlands, his research involved important work in Shropshire and the demonstration that Cambrian rocks underlay the Carboniferous rocks between Nuneaton and Atherstone.” (visit link)

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Blue Plaque managing agency: University of Birmingham Individual Recognized: Charles Lapworth Physical Address: The University of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham, United Kingdom B15 2TT Web Address: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log User Rating   06/19/2019 Poole/Freeman visited it