John Walter Gregory was drowned in Northern Peru in the rapids of the River Urubamba, early in June, 1932, at the age of 68.
He was the son of a wool merchant and was educated at the Stepney Grammar School. On leaving school he was for eight years associated with his father in the wool trade, during which period he travelled in Russia.
In 1887 he qualified for the position of assistant in the Geological Department of the British Museum, and thenceforth devoted himself to scientific pursuits, achieving an enviable reputation as geologist, geographer, explorer, archaeologist, and social economist. In the course of his subsequent career he wrote twenty books, and contributed something like three hundred papers to scientific societies, ranging from palaeontology to ore deposits, from the geology of East Africa ‘rift’ valleys to the origin of fiords, from structural and comparative geography to social problems, including that of ‘colour’, and from the history of roads to human migration. He held his position at the British Museum for thirteen years, and during that period travelled extensively, to the Rocky Mountains, to East Africa where he established the existence of the great ‘rift’ valley, and to Spitzbergen.
In 1900 he left Government service to take up the position of Professor of Geology in the University of Melbourne, for part of the four years thus occupied being also Director of the Geological Survey, Mines Department, Victoria. While in Australia, he was director of the civilian scientific staff of the Antarctic expedition in 1900-1901, and later took charge of the Lake Eyre expedition.
Returning to England in 1904, he was appointed Professor of Geology in the University of Glasgow, a post he filled with distinction for twenty-five years, retiring with the rank of Emeritus Professor. During his professorship, he went in 1908 to Cyrenaica to report on the suitability of the country as a home for Zionists, in 1912 to Southern Angola, and in 1922 with his son to the Alps of Chinese Tibet.
His last trip, which ended so tragically, was commenced in January, 1932, and was made for the purpose of exploring and studying the volcanic centres of the Andes, especially in regard to earthquakes, to end with a journey by canoe down one of the head streams of the Amazon.
Reference has already been made to his literary output. So far as the Institution was concerned, he contributed largely to the discussion of papers dealing with geology and allied subjects, and presented four papers from his own pen, ‘Ancient Auriferous Conglomerates of Southern Rhodesia’ (Trans., xv), ‘The Origin of Gold in the Rand Banket’ (Trans., xvii), ‘The Nickel-Cobalt Ore of Talnotry, Kirkcudbrightshire’ (Trans., xxxvii), and ‘The Copper-shale (Kupferschiefer) of Mansfeld’ (Trans., xl). He was elected F.R.S. in 1901, and held the degrees of B.Sc. of London and Melbourne, LL.D. of Liverpool, and was a Past-president of the Geological Society (who had awarded him the Bigsby Medal in 1905 and the Lyell Fund in 1892).
Professor Gregory was elected a Member of the Institution in 1905.
Vol. 42 Trans IMM 1932-3, pp.610-11
