Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Medlicott, Henry Benedict

by Horace Bolingbroke Woodward

MEDLICOTT, HENRY BENEDICT (1829–1905), geologist, born at Loughrea, co. Galway, on 3 Aug. 1829, was second of three sons of Samuel Medlicott, rector of Loughrea, by his wife Charlotte, daughter of Colonel H. B. Dolphin, C.B. The eldest son, Joseph G. Medlicott (d. 1866), of the geological survey of India, afterwards in the Indian educational service, was author of a 'Cotton Hand-book for Bengal' (1862). The youngest son, Samuel, became rector of Bowness in Cumberland in 1877.

Medlicott received his early education partly in France, partly in Guernsey, and then entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1850, with diploma and honours in the school of civil engineering, proceeding M.A. in 1870. In 1851 he joined the geological survey of Ireland, and worked for two years under Joseph Beete Jukes [q. v.], when he was transferred to the English staff and was engaged during 1853 in field-work in Wiltshire. On 24 March 1854 he joined the geological survey of India, and from August till 1862 was professor of geology at the Thomason College of Civil Engineering at Rurki. During his vacations he carried on geological field-work for the survey under Dr. Thomas Oldham [q. v.]. In 1857, as a volunteer, he joined the garrison of Rurki against the mutineers, and for his services was awarded the Indian Mutiny medal. In 1862 he rejoined the geological survey as deputy superintendent for Bengal.

During his early years in India, Medlicott, with his brother Joseph, investigated the stratigraphical position of the Vindhyan series, and sought to separate these ancient unfossiliferous and possibly pre-Cambrian strata from the Gondwana series which ranges from upper palaeozoic into mesozoic. In a memoir published by the Indian survey in 1864 Medlicott dealt with the structure of the southern portion of the Himalayan ranges, and expressed the view that the elevation of the mountains did not commence before tertiary times. He instituted some comparisons between the structure of the Alps and the Himalayas in a paper published by the Geological Society in 1868. In his opinion too little attention had been given to the effects of shrinkage and subsidence, and he questioned whether the sea-level has permanently maintained the same radial distance from the centre of the earth. In the words of William Thomas Blanford [q. v. Suppl. II], 'Some of the views expressed by him required and have since received revision, but as an original description of mountain- building, from a uniformitarian as opposed to a catastrophic point of view, it deserves far more attention than it has received.'

In 1876 Medlicott succeeded Oldham as superintendent of the geological survey of India, the title being altered to director in 1885. His duties kept him mainly in Calcutta, where he gave the most painstaking attention to editing the survey publications.

He retired on 27 April 1887, and died at Clifton, Bristol, on 6 April 1905. He was elected F.R.S. in 1877, and in 1888 the Wollaston medal was awarded to him by the Geological Society. He was president of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1879-81, and was a fellow of Calcutta University. On 27 Oct. 1857 he married at Landour (Landhaur) Louisa,, second daughter of the Rev. D. H. Maunsell, by whom he had three sons and three daughters. His wife, with one son and one daughter, survived him. His published works include:

1. 'Sketch of the Geology of the Punjab,' 1874; revised 1888.
2. 'Manual of the Geology of India,' two vols, (with W. T. Blanford), 1879; new edit., revised by R. D. Oldham, 1893.
3. 'Agnosticism and Faith,' 1888.
4. 'The Evolution of Mind in Man,' 1892.

[Obituaries by W. T. Blanford, Proc. Roy. See. lxxix. B. 1906, p. xix, and Nature, lxxi. 1905, p. 612.]

H. B. W.