John Bicknell Auden

John Bicknell Auden (14 December 1903 – 21 January 1991[1]) was an English geologist and explorer, older brother of the poet Wystan Auden, who worked for many years in India with the Geological Survey of India and later with the Food and Agriculture Organization. He worked for many years studying the Himalayan strata, particularly the Krol Belt where he recognized rocks from the Peninsular thrusting north into the Himalayas. He also studied groundwater and was involved in studying the geology of many dam sites in India. Auden's Col is named after him.

Biography

Auden was born at 54 Bootham in York, the second son of George Augustus Auden with Constance Rosalie nee Bicknell (1869–1941) and was an older brother of the poet W. H. Auden. He was educated along with his younger brother Wystan at St Edmund's School, Hindhead, a Surrey prep school, after his father moved to teach public health at Birmingham. He excelled in French, English and the classics and being bespectactled earned the nickname of "dodo". He later studied at Marlborough College (1917 to 1922), and geology at Christ's College, Cambridge receiving a BA in 1936 after which he joined the Geological Survey of India, where he remained until he retired in the early 1950s. Like his brother he wrote poetry at college and was described as an extreme neurotic and suffered from depression in the early 1930s. He received an MA in 1930 and an Sc.D. in 1948.[2]

Geology in India

Auden took an interest in the Vindhyan formations of the Himalayas and as a keen mountaineer founded the Himalayan Club in 1927. His exploration and mapping (with three other climbers) of the high Karakoram and Anghil region of the Himalayas was the subject of Eric Shipton's Blank on the Map (1938). In 1929 he visited his younger brother Wystan in Berlin and talked to him about K2 which served as inspiration for The Ascent of F6. One of Auden's early interests was in the Krol Belts. This early stratigraphy work in the mid 1930s on the Himalayas was however something he could not continue work on after moving into economic geology following the war. He noted signifincantly that "Aravalli strikes found locally in rock structures in the Garhwal Himalaya /.. suggests a northward extension of Peninsular rocks into the Himalaya."[3] In 1940 he was elected president of the Geological Institute of Presidency College, Calcutta. In 1937 John learned to pilot an aircraft and conducted an aerial survey of the Bijaigarh shales. In 1945-51, he was engaged in investigating all the major dam sites, hydro electric projects, irrigation works and water supply schemes of India. He became an acclaimed expert on groundwater in the Kutch and Rajasthan region.[2]

The Geological Survey of India offered the position of a director to Auden in 1953 but he declined it on the grounds of health and also pointed out that it would be only right for an Indian to lead (who would be M.S. Krishnan) it. After retiring from the Geological Survey of India (he was the last European to be recruited into it and the last European to leave the organization)[4] he joined the Sudan geological survey from 1953 for two years and for four years with the Burmah Oil Company.In 1960 he joined the Food and Agriculture Organization, where he worked until 1970. After retiring he lived in London, at Thurloe Square close to the museum and served for two years as vice-president of the Geological Society of London. He was awarded the gold medal of the Asiatic Society in 1953 and the Darashaw Nosherwanji Wadia medal of the Indian National Science Academy in 1980.[2]

Personal life

He was married twice, first to Margaret Marshall who was interested in psychology and initially a counsellor for Auden. She suggested that his depression would improve if he did no return to India. After the death of Margaret's husband, Douglas Marshall, she married John in 1930 and went to India. John found Margaret domineering, unfaithful and a spendthrift and they separated in January 1932, divorcing in October 1933. He married Sheila Bonnerjee, a granddaughter of a founding president of the Indian National Congress Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, in 1940 and they had two daughters. He converted from Anglican to Roman Catholicism in 1951.[2][5]

Publications

Notes

  1. ↑ Edward Mendelson, webmaster, audensociety.org. "Newsletter 7 (October 1991)". audensociety.org. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Stearn, Roger T. (2004). "Auden, John Bicknell (1903–1991)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/53476.
  3. ↑ Gansser, A. (1991). "John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991)". Journal of the Geological Society of India. 37 (6): 613–617.
  4. ↑ Rao, M. Sarveswara (2004). "J.B. Auden- A centenary tribute". Journal of the Geological Society of India. 63: 135–138.
  5. ↑ Boris Berkhoff, "Obituary: John Auden", The Independent, 26 January 1991

References

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