| Description | Oral history interview: Bernard Leake interviewed by Cherry Lewis about his life and geological career, carried out as part of a History of Geology Group (HOGG) project originating around the time of the bicentenary of the Society.
Recording location: Unknown [interviewee's house?]
Duration: 01:26:20
Family background, including parents, childhood during WW2, schooling, becoming a Quaker, choosing a university, and summer jobs on farms and then at McAlpine (00:15-20:42), Geology at Liverpool University (undergrad 1949-1952; PhD 1952-1955; Leverhulme Postdoc Fellowship 1955-1957), including field work in Ireland and Scotland, an oil-company funded Geological Society geological trip around Britain, being taught by Robert Shackleton, mapping in Ireland for PhD, and going to prison as a conscientious objector (1956) (20:43-34:02); development of ideas of continental drift/plate tectonics in the academic world (34:02-41:45); more on PhD, including relationship between Liverpool University and Imperial College London, time at Imperial doing rapid silicate analysis as part of PhD, and field work in Ireland (41:45-48:11); work as assistant geology lecturer at Bristol University (1957-1974), including setting up a geochemistry laboratory, getting the first automatic XRF [x-ray fluorescence] machine in a British university, and colleagues and research students (48:11-01:00:50); six month sabbatical working with a microprobe in Berkeley, California, life with wife - meeting her doing Quaker charity work in Newcastle (1954) and taking her to Ireland to live in a furniture wagon each summer whilst mapping, and the history of the furniture wagon (01:00:50-01:12:15); work as Head of Geology at Glasgow University (1974-1992), including sabbaticals in Western Australia (01:12:15-01:14:13); interviewee's involvement with the Geological Society, including editorship of the Journal of the Geological Society (JGS) (1972-1974), chairmanship of Publications Committee, Treasurer (1981-1985, 1989-1996), President (1986-1988), setting up Publishing House, beginning of subsuming the Institute of Geologists (01:14:13-01:26:20). [Recording stops mid-sentence.] |