John Flett

Sir John Smith Flett, known as John Flett, was a Scottish physician and geologist born June 26, 1869, in Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland, who died January 26, 1947, in Ashdon, Essex, England, and who specialized in petrology and petrography, participating in geological expeditions that observed volcanic eruptions in the Caribbean in 1902 and 1907. He served as lecturer in petrology at the University of Edinburgh, joined the Geological Survey as petrographer in 1901 and assistant director in 1911, and served as director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain from 1920 to 1935. He won the Neill Prize between 1898 and 1901 from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1900 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1913, won the Bolitho Medal from the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall in 1917, was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1918 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1925, served as president of the Edinburgh Geological Society and the Mineralogical Society, and received the Wollaston Medal in 1935.