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Thomas Sergeant Hall (23 December 1858 – 21 December 1915) was an Australian geologist and biologist, recipient of The Murchison Fund in 1901. [1]
Hall was born in Geelong, the son of Thomas March Hall, a business man originally from Lincolnshire, England and Elizabeth, née Walshe, from Dublin. Hall was educated at the Geelong Grammar School where he came under the influence of James L. Cuthbertson. He was a junior master at Wesley College in 1879–80, then Hawthorn College and then went to the University of Melbourne, where he took his B.A. degree in 1886 with honours in natural science. This included work in palaeontology under Sir Frederick McCoy. Hall taught for a year at Girton College, Sandhurst (now Bendigo) in 1887, but returned to the university and did a three years' course in biology under Professor Sir Baldwin Spencer.
Hall took a leading part in the forming of the university science club, and through it met Dr G. B. Pritchard with whom he was later to do valuable work in geology. Hall was a successful director of the Castlemaine school of mines from 1890 to 1893, and in the latter year became lecturer in biology at Melbourne university. Hall held this position until his death but found time for many other activities.
In 1899 Hall published a Catalogue of the Scientific and Technical Periodical Literature in the Libraries of Victoria. A second and enlarged edition, in which he was assisted by Mr E. R. Pitt of the public library, Melbourne, appeared in 1911. He did much valuable work for the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (president 1901–1903), the Royal Society of Victoria, and the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science. His Victorian Hill and Dale (1909), describing the geology of the country around Melbourne, is a model book of popular science, written without a trace of scientific jargon; there is barely a technical term in its 150 pages. He did not write a large number of papers, but his work on the graptolite rocks of Victoria led to his being made the recipient of The Murchison Fund of the Geological Society of London in 1901. One of his major discoveries was the key to the unravelling of the complex Ordovician sequence.
He married Miss Eva Lucie Annie Hill on 21 December 1891, who survived him along with three sons and a daughter.
Hall became ill early in 1915, but carried on his work until shortly before his death from chronic nephritis on 21 December 1915. He was given the honorary degree of D.Sc. by Melbourne University in 1908. Hall's work with Dr Pritchard on the tertiary fossiliferous strata of Victoria, and his own work on the graptolite rocks of Victoria gives him a permanent place in the history of Australian geology.
Charles Lapworth FRS FGS was a headteacher and an English geologist who pioneered faunal analysis using index fossils and identified the Ordovician period.
Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding organisms are known chiefly from fossils found from the Middle Cambrian through the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian). A possible early graptolite, Chaunograptus, is known from the Middle Cambrian. Recent analyses have favored the idea that the living pterobranch Rhabdopleura represents an extant graptolite which diverged from the rest of the group in the Cambrian. Fossil graptolites and Rhabdopleura share a colony structure of interconnected zooids housed in organic tubes (theca) which have a basic structure of stacked half-rings (fuselli). Most extinct graptolites belong to two major orders: the bush-like sessile Dendroidea and the planktonic, free-floating Graptoloidea. These orders most likely evolved from encrusting pterobranchs similar to Rhabdopleura. Due to their widespread abundance, planktonic lifestyle, and well-traced evolutionary trends, graptoloids in particular are useful index fossils for the Ordovician and Silurian periods.
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish geologist who served as director-general of the British Geological Survey from 1855 until his death in 1871. He is noted for investigating and describing the Silurian, Devonian and Permian systems.
The Honorable DrJohn Macadam, was a Scottish-Australian chemist, medical teacher, Australian politician and cabinet minister, and honorary secretary of the Burke and Wills expedition. The genus Macadamia was named after him in 1857. He died at sea, on a voyage from Australia to New Zealand, aged 38.
Sir Frederick McCoy, was an Irish palaeontologist, zoologist, and museum administrator, active in Australia. He is noted for founding the Botanic Garden of the University of Melbourne in 1856.
Sir Archibald Geikie was a Scottish geologist and writer.
Ralph Tate was a British-born botanist and geologist, who was later active in Australia.
Gertrude Lilian Elles MBE was a British geologist, known for her work on graptolites.
The Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) is an Australian natural history and conservation organisation.
John James Clark, an Australian architect, was born in Liverpool, England. Clark's 30 years in public service, in combination with 33 in private practice, produced some of Australia's most notable public buildings, as well as at least one prominent building in New Zealand.
Henry Caselli Richards, was an Australian professor of geology, academic and teacher.
Dame Ethel Mary Reader Shakespear was an English geologist, Justice of the Peace, public servant, and philanthropist. She is most famously known for her work on the Lower Ludlow Formation and won several awards for her influential papers.
Georgina Sweet was an Australian zoologist and women's rights activist. She was the first woman to graduate with a Doctor of Science from the University of Melbourne, and was the first female acting professor in an Australian university.
Sir (Cyril) James Stubblefield FRS (1901–1999) was a British geologist. Stubblefield was president of the Geological Society of London from 1958 to 1960 and was director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain from 1960 until 1966.
William Thomas Appleton (1859–1930), was an Australian businessman, shipping agent and public servant. He was born on 2 May 1859 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. His father, Thomas Appleton was a bookbinder, and his mother was Mary.
Events from the year 1835 in Scotland.
Kathleen Margaret Maria Sherrard was an Australian geologist and paleontologist.
Daniel James Mahoney (1878-1944), was an Australian scientist in the field of geology and petrology. He was a specialist in the Victorian Mines Department, undertook research in Cambridge and was director of the Museum of Victoria from 1931 to 1944.
Elizabeth Arnold Ripper was an Australian geologist, significant for her work in stromatoporoids.
John Young FGS (1823–1900) was a Scottish geologist, palaeontologist and a curator at the Hunterian Museum. He was a vice-president of the Glasgow Geological Society and of the Natural History Society of Glasgow, and was awarded both life membership of the Geological Society of London and money from their Murchison Medal Fund. He was made a Doctor of Laws by the University of Glasgow.
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