| Administrative History | Lt Col Tannat William Edgeworth David gave a talk at the Ordinary General Meeting of 26 February 1919. The Proceedings (No. 1035) only mentions the title, and it was thought that the War Office had denied permission for it to be published.
The troopship on which the Tannatt William Edgeworth David was to set sail in had been delayed. Seizing the opportunity, he was persuaded by the Society’s officers to give an impromptu account of his experiences of the ‘application of geological knowledge to the War on the Western Front’. Four years previously, David had convinced the Australian government to establish a corps of geologists and miners for military use in the First World War, and at the mature age of 57, he enlisted as a commissioned major to the new mining battalion in October 1915. Travelling to France and the Western Front in February 1916 he provided invaluable advice to troops on ground water and the positioning and design of trenches and tunnels.
Despite seriously injuring himself falling 24 metres down a well in October 1916, David continued his war service as geologist to the British Expeditionary Force, collaborating with his British counterpart William Bernard Robinson King (later President of the Society between 1953 - 1955). |
| CustodialHistory | Found in one of the offprints boxes in the Library by Wendy Cawthorne, 21 Feb 2014. |