George Brown Barbour

George Brown Barbour FGS FRSE FRSSA (1890–1977) was an internationally renowned Scottish geologist and educator.

He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 22 August 1890. He was the son of the eminent gynaecologist, Alexander Hugh Freeland Barbour and Margaret Nelson Brown.

From 1899 he attended Merchiston Castle School in the south of Edinburgh. In 1906 he left the school to attend Marburg University in Germany for one year.

He received an Honours degree of Master of Arts in Classics from the University of Edinburgh in 1910. In 1912 he was accepted to study for a Master of Arts in science from Cambridge University, but his studies were interrupted by the war.

During the First World War he originally enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery but changed to serve in a non-combatant ambulance unit in both Flanders and Italy, the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU).

He graduated from Cambridge in 1918.

In 1919 he travelled to America to attend Columbia University in New York. Here he met Dorothy Dickinson, whom he married in a small ceremony at her summer home, "Kakro", in Westhampton Beach, Long Island on 15 May 1920. She was from a very well-connected Christian family.

Together they then travelled to China (his wife having the intention to act as a Christian missionary) where he then became Professor of Applied Geology at Yenching University (in Peking) from 1920 to 1922. In 1922 and 1923 he was Head of Geology at Peiyang University in Tientsin. Then returning to Yenching as Professor of Geology from 1923 to 1932. During his time in China he served on the staff of the Chinese Geological Survey's Cenozoic Laboratory and was intimately associated with the discovery and dating of Peking Man.

...
Wikipedia