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JOHN STUART WEBB (1920–2007)

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In 1978, publication of The Wolfson Geochemical Atlas of England and Wales, which showed the spatial distribution of concentrations of nineteen elements in the fine-grained (<0.177 mm) sieved fraction of samples of ~50,000 active stream sediments, collected at a spatial density of ~1 sample per 2.5 km² over the whole of England and Wales where surficial drainage was present, established proof-of-concept of the multi-element regional geochemical atlas as a tool capable of providing geochemical data reflecting changes in bedrock geology and overburden, as well as both natural and anthropogenic sources of pollution. It represented the culmination of a programme of systematic research begun in 1954, when Webb established the Geochemical Prospecting Research Centre at the Imperial College of Science and Technology (ICST), London. His farsighted vision of geochemical atlases as a strategic national requirement, capable of providing information of relevance to fundamental geology, mineral exploration, agriculture and animal/human health, eventually became fully realised in the UNESCO Division of Earth Sciences International Geochemical Mapping Project, inaugurated in 1988.

Webb was born in Balham, London, on 28 August 1920, the eldest child of George Stewart Webb and his wife Caroline Rabjohns (née Pengelly). Educated at St. Mary’s School, Balham (1925–30) and Westminster City School, London (1930–38), he graduated BSc (First Class Honours) in Mining Geology from ICST in 1941, having been awarded the Murchison Medal (1939), the Brough Medal (1940), the Clement le Neve Foster Prize (1941) and the Cullis Testimonial Fund (1941).

After a brief period as assistant mining geologist to the U.K. Government’s Non-Ferrous Metallic Ores Committee, he served as a sapper in the Royal Engineers (1941–43) and was commissioned Second Lieutenant before being transferred to the Geological Survey of Nigeria (1943–44) as an economic mineralogist to look for tantalite, as at . . . [Full Text of this Article]