John Morris (geologist)

He was engaged for some years as a pharmaceutical chemist in High Street Kensington, but soon became interested in geology and other branches of science, and ultimately retired from business.

He also helped identify fossils for Charles Darwin from his HMS Beagle voyages, and he may even have tutored Karl Marx, who had a hobby interest in geology.

Morris put himself forward and was duly appointed as the first Goldsmid Professor of Geology (endowed from a bequest of £1000 by Baron de Goldsmid), taking up appointment in January 1853, succeeding Andrew Crombie Ramsay, who had resigned in 1851.

[4] He expanded the Museum of Geology at UCL through donations from Murchison and George Bellas Greenough and adding great numbers of fossils from his own collection.

He established a regular course of lectures in mineralogy and geology and introduced field-classes: "During the course demonstrations in the field will be given, with a view to affording the Students a practical acquaintance of the method of Geological surveying, and of describing the sections presented by quarries, road-cuttings &c."[5] Although modest and somewhat diffident Morris was a gifted teacher, who was given to explaining ideas clearly and logically with lucid exposition.