WILLIAM THOMAS BLANFORD (1832–1905): AN EMINENT MID- TO LATE-VICTORIAN GEOLOGIST AND ZOOLOGIST

William Thomas Blanford was born in London in 1832. He studied geology at the Royal School of Mines and was awarded its Associateship. Following fieldwork in Cornwall, Blanford attended the Freiberg Mining Academy and published his first scientific paper in 1854. Recruited to the Geological Survey of India in 1855 he remained until 1882. He first studied coal-bearing strata, a mineral that occupied him considerably throughout his service. During his twenty-seven years of Indian service he traveled widely, describing the geology and forging ideas on the age and distribution of the various strata and writing up his results whilst deepening his interest in zoology. In 1867–1869 Blanford was attached to the Abyssinian Expedition as geologist and zoologist. In 1870–1874 he was attached to the Baluchistan/Persia boundary commission. His last years in India included further field work and sedentary occupations in Calcutta before he resigned in 1882. Settled in London he married a woman twenty-four years his junior in 1883 and embarked on a long-term project as Editor of a series of volumes on the Indian fauna. Blanford became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1860 and was later a Fellow of several other learned societies. Without fail he served on their Councils and was variously Secretary, Treasurer, Vice President and President of all of them in which capacities he travelled abroad to attend Annual Conferences. His health deteriorated under the heavy schedule he set himself and he died at home in 1905 aged 73 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.