Coleridge Farr


Clinton Coleridge Farr was a New Zealand geophysicist, electrical engineer and university professor.
He was born the youngest son of Rev. George Henry Farr and Julia Warren Farr on 22 May 1866. George was first headmaster of the Collegiate School of St Peter in Adelaide, South Australia. Coleridge was educated at the University of Adelaide, University College, London and the University of Sydney.
Farr tutored at Sydney and then Adelaide from 1893 to 1896, when he was appointed lecturer in mathematics and physics at Lincoln Agricultural College, Christchurch, New Zealand. As Director of the Christchurch Magnetic Observatory he organised a magnetic survey of New Zealand and was awarded the first science D.Sc. by the University of Adelaide.
As lecturer in physics and surveying at Canterbury College, Christchurch Farr was a member of the 1907 Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition. He was created Professor of Physics at Canterbury College in 1911.
In 1919 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, winning their Hector Medal in 1922 and serving as their president from 1929 to 1930. In 1928 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
He retired in 1936 and died in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1943. He had married Maud Ellen Haydon in 1903 and had a son.