Sir Lewis Leigh-Fermor died at his home at Woking, Surrey, on 24th May, 1954, at the age of 73.
He was educated at Wilson’s Grammar School, London, and entered the Royal College of Science as a National Scholar in 1898. Inspired by his cousin, the late Sir Thomas Kirke Rose, Past-President of the Institution, he originally set out to become a metallurgist, and after taking the full course at the College and the Royal School of Mines he obtained a first-class A.R.S.M. in metallurgy in 1901. During the course he was awarded the Murchison Medal and Prize in geology, a subject in which he became so interested that he continued at the Royal College of Science to take a one-year advanced course in geology under the late Professor Judd, on whose advice he decided upon a geological career. He was awarded the D.Sc. degree of the University of London in 1909.
In 1902 he joined the Geological Survey of India, beginning as assistant superintendent and being promoted deputy superintendent in 1904, superintendent in 1910 and Director of the Survey in 1932. He retired from the Survey in 1935. During his 34 years of service in India he represented the Government at International Geological Congresses held in Sweden (1910), Canada (1913), Spain (1926) and South Africa (1929). He was President of the Mining and Geological Institute of India in 1922, the Indian Science Congress Association in 1933, and the Asiastic Society of Bengal, of which he had been a Fellow since 1916, during the period 1933-36. He was Founder-President of the National Institute of Sciences in India in 1935-36, and from 1930 to 1935 was President of the Governing Body of the Indian School of Mines and Geology.
During 1917 and 1918 Sir Lewis held the position of Minerals Adviser to the Indian Munitions Board. In 1919 he was awarded the O.B.E. On retiring from the Geological Survey of India in 1935 he was created Knight Bachelor.
Sir Lewis was subsequently engaged in consulting work in India, Malaya and Africa and more lately in Britain. When visiting Malaya in 1938 he prepared, at the invitation of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a comprehensive ‘Report upon the mining industry of Malaya’. Later in 1938 he revisited India to report on a coal property, and during 1939 he worked for Aluminium Laboratories, Ltd., a subsidiary of Aluminium, Ltd., of Montreal, on a project for the manufacture of aluminium in India.
Sir Lewis’s long list of distinctions include the Bigsby Medal of The Geological Society of London, awarded in 1921, and honorary membership of the Mining, Geological and Metallurgical Institute of India (conferred in 1938), and of the Malayan Chamber of Mines (1943). He was made an honorary fellow of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in 1943. He was the William Menelaus Memorial Lecturer of the South Wales Institute of Engineers in 1945 and the Sir George Birdwood Memorial Lecturer of the Royal Society of Arts in 1947. In 1948 he was appointed Corréspondant Etranger de la Société Géologique de France.
The publications of the Geological Survey of India contain many contributions from Sir Lewis, and he was the author also of numerous articles in the technical press and professional journals on geology, petrology, mineralogy, meteorites, ore deposits and mineral statistics. His books include Manganese ore deposits of India, published in 1909, Garnets and their role in nature, published in 1938, and Report upon the mining industry of Malaya, published in 1939. He contributed a paper on ‘Basis for a possible scheme of income tax (and E.P.T.) allowance for wasting mineral assets’ (contribution No.6 to the Symposium on Mine Taxation) to the Transactions of the Institution (vol. 52, 1942-43), and his Presidential Address entitled ‘The mineral deposits of Gondwanaland’ was published in vol. 60, 1950-51. He also submitted a paper to the Fourth Empire Mining and Metallurgical Congress, 1949, on ‘The mineral resources of Malaya and other Far Eastern countries’.
Sir Lewis was elected to Membership of the Institution in 1920 and served on the Council continuously from 1938. He was a Vice-President during the period 1942-45, and President of the Institution for the Session 1951-52. He was a Fellow of the Geological Society and served as Vice-President of that body from 1945 to 1947 and of the Mineralogical Society from 1943 to 1946. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1934.
Dr. G.V. Hobson writes: ‘To those who knew him well, Fermor, for so he remained to us after becoming Sir Lewis to a wider circle, was always something of an enigma combining as he did a very scholarly mind with an almost boyish capacity for playing the fool gladly at times of relaxation. In spite, therefore, of a somewhat pedantic manner he was essentially human and understanding so that as well as being an inspiring colleague he was a leader it was always a pleasure to serve.
The possessor of a keen and enquiring brain he was always interested in, and eager to discuss and help in, the problems of others and remained readily approachable to the humblest of his staff at all times. With his great sense of duty and complete impartiality it is safe to say that Fermor was a true friend of the Indians and the transition of the Geological Survey into their hands must have been aided by the work he had already done’.
Vol. 63, Trans IMM 1953-54, pp.570-72
[He was the father of the author Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor, DSO, OBE].
