Linsdall Richardson

Linsdall Richardson (24th December 1881 - 1st January 1967) is a real link between the 19th and 20th Century for his active career as a geologist lasted about seventy years. He was the son of a clergyman in Lancashire and was educated at Clifton College, Bristol. He moved to Cheltenham to take up a career in banking, and lived at 10 Oxford Parade, Cheltenham. He suffered from poor health and was advised by his doctor to spend more time in the open air, and so he pursued his interest in geology.

He soon established a name for himself by studying and correlating the Rhaetic rocks, walking across England from the south coast to the east coast, recording sections wherever he found them. He published his results in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society and the Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists Field Club. Having finished that task, he continued his work with a similar study of the Oolitic rocks across England. In 1904 he published "The Geology of Cheltenham", a book that is still essential reading for anyone interested in the geology of the Cotswolds. He became interested in the geology of water supply and in the alluvial deposits of the River Severn and published articles on both these subjects. For the Geological Survey, he wrote the memoir describing the "Country around Moreton-in-Marsh" in 1929, "The Country around Cirencester" in 1933 and the "Geology of the County around Witney" in 1946.

Richardson also studied the fossil sea urchins and sponges of the Oolites of the West of England, and published a joint paper with A.C.Thacker in 1920, in the Proceedings of the Geologist's Association. He assembled an educationally instructive fossil collection which is stored at Cheltenham Museum and was recently catalogued by the Author. This collection includes more than two thousand five hundred brachiopods and it is clear that he collected a range, to show the variation of species, and the variation within the species at different locations. A collection of his published papers is stored with the fossils.

Richardson was a member of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club from the age of nineteen in 1900 and contributed his first scientific paper in 1901. He continued an almost continuous stream of papers until 1967. He produced more papers for the "Proceedings" than any other geologist. He has the almost unique achievement of being elected President of three different Field Clubs, The Cotteswold, The Worcestershire and the Woolhope (Hereford). He was at one time appointed the Organising Inspector for Technical Education in Gloucestershire.

Richardson was the President of the Cotteswold Club from 1932 to 1934 and Honorary Secretary from 1904 to 1916. He moved to 104 Greenfield Road, Harborne, Birmingham, in the late 1920's and had become an Honorary Member by 1936. His collections are in the Natural History Museum; the BGS at Keyworth; the Imperial College, London; the University of Reading; Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and Cheltenham Museum and Art Gallery.

Updated and corrected 20.6.1999