Editing Charles Lapworth (section)

== Biography ==
Charles Lapworth was born at [[Faringdon]] in Berkshire (now [[Oxfordshire]]) the son of James Lapworth.<ref>{{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=12 March 2017|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}}</ref>
[[file:4_Abbotsford_Road_re_Charles_Lapworth_headmaster_here.jpg|thumb|His school in Galashiels in 2021]]
He trained as a teacher at the Culham Diocesan Training College near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. He moved to the Scottish border region, where he investigated the previously little-known fossil [[Fauna (animals)|fauna]] of the area. He was headmaster of the school in [[Galashiels]] from 1864 to 1875.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Category:Charles Lapworth - Wikimedia Commons|url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Charles_Lapworth#/media/File:4_Abbotsford_Road_Charles_Lapworth_plaque.jpg|access-date=2021-08-20|website=commons.wikimedia.org|language=en}}</ref> In 1869 he married Janet, daughter of [[Galashiels]] schoolmaster Walter Sanderson.

Through mapping and innovative use of index fossil analysis, based on a sequence exposed at [[Dob's Linn]], Lapworth showed that what was thought to be a thick sequence of [[Silurian]] rocks was in fact a much thinner series of rocks repeated by faulting and folding.<ref>{{cite journal | first = Charles | last = Lapworth | title = The Moffat Series | journal = Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society | date = 1878 | volume = 34 | issue = 1–4 | pages = 241–346 | url = https://archive.org/details/LapworthMoffatSeries1878QuJouGeolSocVol34Page240 | doi=10.1144/gsl.jgs.1878.034.01-04.23| s2cid = 140621558 | url-access = subscription }}</ref>

[[Image:Mason Science College.png|thumb|left|[[Mason Science College|Mason Science College, now the University of Birmingham]]]]

[[File:Charles Lapworth plaque, Madras College, St. Andrews.jpg|thumb|Madras College plaque]]
He completed this pioneering research in the Southern Uplands while employed as a schoolmaster for 11 years at the Episcopal Church school, Galashiels. He then studied geology and became in 1875 an assistant at [[Madras College]] in St Andrews, Fife, and then in 1881 the first professor of geology at [[Mason Science College]], later the [[University of Birmingham]], where he taught until his retirement in 1913.

He is best known for pioneering faunal analysis of Silurian beds by means of [[index fossil]]s, especially [[graptolite]]s, and his proposal (eventually adopted) that the beds between the [[Cambrian]] beds of north [[Wales]] and the [[Silurian]] beds of South Wales should be assigned to a new geological period: the [[Ordovician]].<ref>Charles Lapworth (1879) [https://books.google.com/books?id=JJpZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1  "On the Tripartite Classification of the Lower Palaeozoic Rocks,"] ''Geological Magazine'', new series, '''6''' : 1–15.  From pp. 13–14:  "North Wales itself – at all events the whole of the great Bala district where Sedgwick first worked out the physical succession among the rocks of the intermediate or so-called ''Upper Cambrian'' or ''Lower Silurian'' system; and in all probability much of the Shelve and the Caradoc area, whence Murchison first published its distinctive fossils – lay within the territory of the Ordovices; …  Here, then, have we the hint for the appropriate title for the central system of the Lower Palaeozoics.  It should be called the Ordovician System, after this old British tribe."</ref> He resolved the long running "[[Highlands controversy of Northwest Scotland|Highlands Controversy]]. Lapworth received numerous awards for his research work, while for teaching he used the English Midlands as a setting for demonstrating the fieldwork techniques he had pioneered in his own research.

[[File:Lapworth 1891 Olenellus Callavei.png|thumb|left|Olenellus Callavei, from Lapworth (1891)<ref name="Lapworth1891">{{cite journal |last1=Lapworth |first1=Charles |title=On Olenellus Callavei and its Geological Relationships |journal=Geological Magazine |date=1891 |volume=8 |issue=12 |pages=529–536 |doi=10.1017/S0016756800187643 |bibcode=1891GeoM....8..529L |s2cid=140616353 |url=https://archive.org/details/lapworth-1891-geologicalmagazi-381891wood}}</ref>]]
Following his researches in the Southern Uplands Charles Lapworth also devoted time to mapping near [[Durness]] in Scotland's northwest highlands and was first to propose the controversial theory that here older rocks were found lying above younger, suggesting complex folding or faulting as a cause.<ref>Lapworth, Charles (1883) "The secret of the Highlands," ''The Geological Magazine'', decade ii, '''10''' :  [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044102911971;view=1up;seq=142 120–128] ; [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044102911971;view=1up;seq=219 193–199] ; [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044102911971;view=1up;seq=367 337–344.]</ref> Later [[Ben Peach|Peach]] and [[John Horne|Horne]] were dispatched to the area and their monumental memoir proved Lapworth correct.<ref name="Peach1884">{{cite journal |last1=Peach |first1=B.N. |last2=Horne |first2=John |title=Report on the Geology of the North-West of Sutherland |journal=Nature |date=1884 |volume=31 |issue=785 |pages=31–35 |doi=10.1038/031031a0 |bibcode=1884Natur..31...31P |s2cid=4142467 |url=https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1038_031031a0|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Peach1888">{{cite journal |last1=Peach |first1=B.N. |last2=Horne |first2=J. |last3=Gunn |first3=W. |last4=Clough |first4=C.T. |last5=Hinxman |first5=L. |last6=Cadell |first6=H.M. |title=Report on the Recent Work of the Geological Survey in the North-west Highlands of Scotland, based on the Field-notes and Maps |journal=Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society |date=1888 |volume=44 |issue=1–4 |pages=378–441 |doi=10.1144/GSL.JGS.1888.044.01-04.34 |s2cid=129572998 |url=https://archive.org/details/peach-1888-quarterlyjournal-44188geol}}</ref><ref name="Geikie1907">{{cite book |last1=Geikie |first1=Archibald |last2=Peach |first2=Bejamin Neave |last3=Horne |first3=John |last4=Gunn |first4=William |last5=Clough |first5=Charles Thomas |last6=Hinxman |first6=Lionel Wordworth |last7=Teall |first7=Jethro Justinian Harris |title=The geological structure of the north-west Highlands of Scotland |date=1907 |publisher=His Majesty's Stationery Office |location=Glasgow |url=https://archive.org/details/geologicalstruc00peacgoog}}</ref> In the English Midlands he carried out important work in Shropshire, in particular identifying fossils of [[Olenellina|Olenelloid trilobites]] of Cambrian age, demonstrating that Cambrian rocks underlay the Carboniferous rocks between Nuneaton and Atherstone, and suggesting a pre-Cambrian date for the [[Longmyndian Supergroup|Longmyndian]] rocks that underlay them.<ref name="Lapworth1888a">{{cite journal |last1=Lapworth |first1=Charles |title=On the Discovery of the Olenellus Fauna in the Lower Cambrian Rocks of Britain |journal=Nature |date=1888 |volume=39 |issue=1000 |pages=212–213 |doi=10.1038/039212b0 |bibcode=1888Natur..39..212L |s2cid=37366158 |url=https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1038_039212b0|doi-access=free }}</ref> He extrapolated these findings to the N.W. Highlands of Scotland, suggesting that the Torridonian sandstone might correspond to the Longmyndian rocks, and thus be pre-Cambrian rather than Cambrian, and that the Durness-Eriboll series, overlaying the Torridonian, would be of Cambrian age rather than Silurian.<ref name="Lapworth1891"/> Again Peach and Horne, surveying in [[Dundonnell and Fisherfield Forest|Dundonnell Forest]], confirmed Lapworths's suggestion, finding Olenelloid fossils in the fucoid beds of the Durness-Eriboll series.<ref name="Peach1892">{{cite journal |last1=Peach |first1=B.N. |last2=Horne |first2=J. |title=The Olenellus Zone in the North-west Highlands of Scotland |journal=Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society |date=1892 |volume=48 |issue=1–4 |pages=227–242 |doi=10.1144/GSL.JGS.1892.048.01-04.17 |s2cid=140197589 |url=https://archive.org/details/peach-1892-quarterlyjournal-48189geol}}</ref> For a modern account and discussion of the elucidation of the geology of the N.W. Highlands, see Oldroyd (1990).<ref name="Oldroyd1990">{{cite book |last1=Oldroyd |first1=David R. |title=The Highlands Controversy |date=1990 |url= https://archive.org/details/highlandscontrov0000oldr/page/n5/mode/2up?q=albert+heim |url-access = registration |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=0-226-62635-0 |via = [[Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

He died on 13 March 1920 and is buried in [[Lodge Hill Cemetery]] near Birmingham.