Henry Benedict Medlicott

Irish geologist (1829–1905)

Henry Benedict Medlicott, FRS (3 August 1829 – 6 April 1905) was an Irish geologist who worked in India. He was a coauthor of a text on the geology of India and is credited with the coining of the term "Gondwana" which was later used to create the concept of Gondwanaland.

He was born in Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland, the son of the Church of Ireland Rector of Loughrea, Samuel Medlicott (1796–1858) and his wife Charlotte (c.1814 1884), daughter of Henry Benedict Dolphin, C. B. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin under Thomas Oldham (1816–1875) as well as in France, Guernsey, and Dublin. He obtained a BA in 1850 with diploma in honours in the School of Civil Engineering and an MA in 1870. He was an expert in French and was acquainted with the works of the French geologists. He joined the Geological Survey of Ireland as a general assistant in October 1851 working under Joseph Beete Jukes (1811–1869) and later with the British Geological Survey in Wiltshire before resigning to join the geological survey of India in March 1854. On the recommendation of Sir Henry De la Beche (1796–1855), he was given the post of geology professor at Thomason College of Civil Engineering at Roorkee. His brothers Joseph G. Medlicott (d. 1866) and Samuel (c.1831–1889) worked in the geological survey of Ireland while Joseph later worked in India.

From 15 August 1854 he worked at Roorkee, making trips with Oldham. He married Louisa, daughter of Reverend Daniel Henry Maunsell, at Landour near Mussoorie on 27 October 1857. In 1857 he served as a volunteer with the garrison of Roorkee against the mutineers and was awarded the Indian Mutiny Medal for Special Service. While at Roorkee, he studied parts of the Narmada Valley and Bundelkhand (in 1854–55, 1856–57). He worked on the geology of the Lower Himalayas and the Siwalik Beds. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1877 and won the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society in 1888. He was a Fellow of Calcutta University, and from 1879 to 1881 he was President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His obituarist and colleague Blanford (who died in the same year) noted that he never used "FRS" after his name in any publications.