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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ormerod, George Wareing

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1429186Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 42 — Ormerod, George Wareing1895Thomas George Bonney

ORMEROD, GEORGE WAREING (1810–1891), geologist, second son of George Ormerod [q. v.], the historian of Cheshire, and brother of Edward Latham Ormerod [q. v.], was born at Tyldesley, Lancashire, on 12 Oct. 1810. He was educated at private schools, and matriculated on 31 Jan. 1829 at Brasenose College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1833, and M.A. in 1836. Admitted a solicitor in the latter year, he practised at Manchester till 1855; then at Chagford in Devonshire, and finally at Teignmouth, whither he removed about 1869. Ormerod, who was unmarried, died on 6 Jan. 1891, highly esteemed for his many sterling qualities. His leisure was devoted to the study of geology, on which subject he published some twenty-three papers, nine of them appearing in the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society.’ These deal with the granite of Dartmoor, the carboniferous, and the new red sandstone rocks of Devonshire, and the Cheshire saltfield. Others were published in the ‘Transactions’ of the Devonshire Association, of which he was an original member. But he will be more gratefully remembered by geologists for his exhaustive index to the ‘Transactions,’ ‘Proceedings,’ and ‘Quarterly Journal’ of the Geological Society. The second edition of the original work brought the index to the close of the session of 1867–8, and since this three supplements have appeared, carrying it on to the corresponding dates in 1875, 1882, and 1889 respectively.

[Obituary notices in Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. 1891; Proc. p. 61, Geol. Mag. 1891, p. 144, and Trans. Devonshire Association, xxiii. 108.]