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Henry Alleyne Nicholson

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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HENRY ALLEYNE NICHOLSON (1844-1899), British palaeontologist and zoologist, son of Dr John Nicholson, a biblical scholar, was born at Penrith on the 11th of September 1844. He was educated at Appleby Grammar School and at the universities of Göttingen (Ph.D., 1866) and Edinburgh (D.Sc., 1867; M.D., 1869). Geology had early attracted his attention, and his first publication was a thesis for his D.Sc. degree On the Geology of Cumberland and Westmoreland (1868). In 1871 he was appointed professor of natural history in the university of Toronto, in 1874 professor of biology in the Durham College of Science and in 1875 professor of natural history in the university of St Andrews. This last post he held until 1882, when he became regius professor of natural history in the university of Aberdeen. He was elected F.R.S. in 1897. His original work was mainly on fossil invertebrata (graptolites, stromatoporoids and corals); but he did much field work, especially in the Lake district, where he laboured in company with Professor R. Harkness and afterwards with Dr J. E. Marr. He was awarded the Lyell Medal by the Geological Society in 1888. He died at Aberdeen on the 19th of January 1899.

Publications. - A ncient Life-History of the Earth (1877); Manual of Zoology (of which there were 7 editions) and other text-books of Zoology; Manual of Palaeontology (1872, 3rd ed., 2 vols., with R. Lydekker, 1889); Monograph of the Silurian Fossils of the Girvan District in Ayrshire (with R. Etheridge, jun.) (1878-1880); Monograph of the British Stromatoporoids in Palaeontograph. Soc. (1886-1892).

Obituary, with portrait, by Dr G. J. Hinde, in Geol. Mag. (March 1899).