Henry Hicks (geologist)


Henry Hicks was a Welsh physician and geologist in the 19th century.

Personal life

Henry Hicks was born on 26 May 1837 in the Welsh city of St Davids. His parents were Anne and the surgeon Thomas Hicks. Hicks married Mary Richardson in February 1864, with whom he had three daughters. He died on 18 November 1899

Career

Medicine

Hicks studied medicine at Guy's Hospital in London; in 1862, he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and was licensed by Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. After receiving his Doctor of Medicine from the University of St Andrews, Hicks returned to St Davids to practise medicine. In 1871, he moved his practise to Hendon. Six years later, Hicks became the head of an asylum in Hendon Grove, solely treating women for mental disorders.

Geology

In St Davids, Hicks met the palæontologist John William Salter, and became enamored with the burgeoning field of study. Hicks discovered a new Lingulella in the red, Cambrian-era rocks near his hometown, and wrote of it to the Geological Society of London. This earned the neophyte rock-hound recognition and a grant from the British Science Association, leading him to find up to thirty more Cambrian species in 1868. Post-1868, Hicks included the higher Paleozoic-era strata in his searches. When he began his psychiatric work in Hendon Grove, this allowed Hicks much more time to devote to the geologic deposits in Middlesex.
Hicks coined the terms Pebidian and Dimetian to describe the Precambrian rocks around St Davids; both descriptors were still used by scientists as of the 2010s. Across the Geological Magazine, the Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, and the Reports of the British Association, Hicks published 63 papers. He was also the first to discover fossils in the Morte Slates Formation.
Hicks was active in the British Science Association, Fellow and president of the Geologists' Association from 1883–1885, and made a Fellow of the Royal Society on 4 June 1885; of the Geological Society, the Welshman was awarded the Bigsby Medal in 1883, secretary from 1890–1893, president from 1896–1898, and vice-president in 1899 at the time of his death.

Papers

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