John Flett (geologist)


Sir John Smith Flett was a Scottish physician and geologist.

Early life

Born in Kirkwall, Orkney, the son of Mary Ann Copland and merchant and baillie James Ferguson Flett. He was educated at Kirkwall Burgh School, George Watson's College in Edinburgh, and the University of Edinburgh.
Flett worked as a general practitioner. He served as lecturer in Petrology at the University of Edinburgh, and as Petrographer, Assistant Director and Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain.

Expeditions

Flett participated in several geological expeditions. He went with Tempest Anderson to observe eruptions in the Caribbean in 1902 and 1907.

Awards and later life

Flett was awarded the Neill Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1900, on the proposal of James Geikie, Ben Peach, John Horne and Ramsay Traquair. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1913, received the Bolitho Medal of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall in 1917, made KBE in 1925 and won the Wollaston Medal in 1935.
Flett served as President of the Edinburgh Geological Society, President of the Mineralogical Society, and President of the geology section of the British Association.
Flett died in Ashdon, Essex.

Family

He married Mary Jane Meason in 1897, and together they had four children. Their son William Roberts Flett was a noted geologist.

Recognition

In the mid 1970s, the then new, glass-faced structure built in the grounds of the South Kensington Museums complex between the Geological Museum and the British Museum containing a lecture theatre, was named in his honour.