Cecil Edgar Tilley

{{Short description|Australian-British petrologist and geologist}}

{{Infobox person | name = Cecil Edgar Tilley | image = | caption = | nationality = Australian | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1894|5|14}} | birth_place = Unley, Adelaide, Australia | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1973|1|24|1894|5|14}} | death_place = Cambridge, England | occupation = Petrologist and geologist | spouse = | known_for = | education = PhD (1922) | alma_mater = Cambridge, UK | honours = }}

Cecil Edgar Tilley FRS,{{Cite journal | last1 = Deer | first1 = W. A. | last2 = Nockolds | first2 = S. R. | authorlink2 = Stephen Robert Nockolds| doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1974.0017 | title = Cecil Edgar Tilley. 1894-1973 | journal = Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society | volume = 20 | issue = 305 | pages = 381–400 | year = 1974 | bibcode = 1974MinM...39..493C | doi-access = | s2cid = 73299810 }} Hon FRSE, PGS (14 May 1894 – 24 January 1973) was an Australian-British petrologist and geologist.

Life

He was born in Unley, Adelaide, the youngest child of John Thomas Edward Tilley, a civil engineer from London, and his wife South Australia-born wife, Catherine Jane Nicholas.

Cecil was educated at Adelaide High School, then studied Chemistry and Geology under William Rowan Browne at the University of Adelaide, and the University of Sydney, graduating in 1915. In 1916, during the First World War, he went to South Queensferry near Edinburgh in Scotland to work as a chemist Department of Explosives Supply. He returned to Australia in December 1918.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|access-date=16 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=dead}}

He won an Exhibition of 1851 scholarship to the University of Cambridge in 1919, where he studied petrology under Alfred Harker, and completed his PhD in 1922. From 1923 he was employed at Cambridge University, first as demonstrator in petrology, and then lecturer in petrology in 1929. In 1931, following the retirement of Harker, he was appointed as the first Professor of Mineralogy and Petrology. Most of the remainder of his life was spent in England, though he spent 1938–9 in Australia and visited regularly after the Second World War.{{cite book | chapter-url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tilley-cecil-edgar-11863 | title=Australian Dictionary of Biography | chapter=Tilley, Cecil Edgar (1894–1973) | publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University }}

In 1929, while investigating a volcanic plug at Scawt Hill, near Larne, Northern Ireland for the Mineralogical Magazine he identified and named the new minerals larnite and scawtite.{{cite web|url=http://www.habitas.org.uk/escr/site.asp?Item=1130|title=Scawt Hill|website=www.habitas.org.uk}}

In 1938 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and served as their Vice President 1949/50. He won the Society's Royal Medal in 1967.

From 1948 to 1951 he was President of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain. He was President of the Geological Society 1949/50. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1957.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|access-date=16 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=dead}}

He died at home in Cambridge on 24 January 1973 aged 78, and his body was cremated.

Family

In 1928 he married Irene Doris Marshall at Holy Trinity Church, Kingsway, London.{{Cite book|url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tilley-cecil-edgar-11863|title = Australian Dictionary of Biography| chapter=Tilley, Cecil Edgar (1894–1973) |publisher = National Centre of Biography, Australian National University}}

They had one daughter.

Publications

XXV.—Metamorphism in Relation to Structure in the Scottish Highlands (1931) co-written with Gertrude Lilian Elles {{doi|10.1017/S0080456800016513}}
Alfred Harker 1859-1939 (1940) co-written with Albert Seward
Waldemar Christofer Brogger 1851-1940 (1941)
Hawaiian Volcanoes (1961); [https://hilo.hawaii.edu/maunakea/library/ref/697 brief description, U.H. Hilo Center for Maunakea Stewardship]
Origin of Basalt Magmas (1962) co-written with H. S. Yoder Jr. {{doi|10.1093/petrology/3.3.342}}

References

External links

[http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM59/AM59_427.pdf G. A. Chinner, Memorial of Cecil Edgar Tilley 14 May 1894 – 24 January 1973, American Mineralogist, Volume 59, pages 427-437, 1974] (with a full list of his published petrological work)
[http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160479b.htm Tilley, Cecil Edgar (1894–1973)] Australian Dictionary of Biography

{{s-bef|before=Professorship of Mineralogy (held by A. Hutchinson){{cite web | url=https://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/Documents/acad/lists/P.html | title=List }}}}

{{s-ttl|title=Professor of Mineralogy and Petrology, University of Cambridge|years=1931-1961}}

Category:1894 births

Category:1973 deaths

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences

Category:Wollaston Medal winners

Category:University of Adelaide alumni

Category:Scientists from Adelaide

Category:Royal Medal winners

Category:Presidents of the International Mineralogical Association

Category:Australian emigrants to the United Kingdom

Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Category:University of Sydney alumni

Category:Australian people of English descent

Category:People educated at Adelaide High School

Category:Professorship of Mineralogy and Petrology (Cambridge)

Category:Presidents of the Geological Society of London

Category:Earth scientists at the University of Cambridge