Alfred Selwyn

Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn, CMG, LL.D, FRS, FGS (26 July 1824 – 19 October 1902) was a British geologist and public servant, director of the Geological Survey of Victoria from 1852 to 1869, director of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) from 1869 to 1894 and President of the Royal Society of Canada from 1895 to 1896.

Selwyn was born in Kilmington, Somerset (now in Wiltshire), England, the son of the Rev. Townshend Selwyn (Canon of Gloucester Cathedral) and his wife, Charlotte Sophia, daughter of Lord George Murray, bishop of St David's, Wales, and granddaughter of the fourth Duke of Athol.

Educated by private tutors at home and afterwards in Switzerland, where he became interested in geology, Selwyn joined the staff of the Geological Survey of Great Britain in 1845 under Sir Henry De la Beche and Sir A. C. Ramsay. Selwyn was actively engaged in the survey of North Wales and bordering portions of Shropshire, and a series of splendid geological maps resulted from his joint work with Ramsay and J. B. Jukes, earning a great commendation from Ramsay. Selwyn was promoted to geologist on 1 January 1848.

In 1852 the Colonial Office appointed Selwyn director of the Geological Survey of Victoria of the recently founded colony of Victoria, where he built up an excellent staff including Richard Daintree, C. D. H. Aplin, Charles Smith Wilkinson, Reginald Murray, Edward John Dunn, Henry Yorke Lyell Brown and Robert Etheridge, Junior, with Sir Frederick McCoy as palaeontologist. He was a strict disciplinarian and from the beginning set up a very high standard of work in his department. During his 17 years as director, over 60 geological maps were issued which were among the best of their period: they were models of accuracy which established a tradition of geological mapping in Australia. Selwyn was well qualified to analyse the Silurian strata. He was also responsible for several reports on the geology of Victoria and added much to the knowledge of gold-bearing rocks. Selwyn discovered the Caledonian goldfield near Melbourne in 1854 and in the following year reported on coal seams in Tasmania, until in 1869 the Colonial Legislature brought the Survey to an abrupt termination on economic grounds.

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