Leonard Johnston Wills

Leonard Johnston Wills, known as Jack Wills, was a British geologist born February 27, 1884, in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England, who died December 12, 1979, in Romsley, Worcestershire, at age 95, and who became a lecturer in geology and geomorphology at the University of Birmingham in 1913, held the chair of geology there from 1932 to 1949, and remained professor emeritus from 1949 until his death. He specialized in the plant and animal fossils of the Bromsgrove district and in fossilized arthropods, conducted pioneering research on subsurface geological structures, and produced palaeogeographical maps of the British Isles that became standard references for petroleum and coal geologists. He received the Walsingham Medal in 1909, the Lyell Medal in 1936, the Wollaston Medal, the Geological Society of London highest award, in 1954, and became in 1976 the only British geologist to hold Honorary Fellowship of the Geological Society of London.