Edward Hull

Edward Hull (21 May 1829 – 18 October 1917) was an Irish geologist and stratigrapher who held the position of Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland. He was also a professor of geology in the Royal College of Science, Dublin. His dates are listed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Biography

He was born in Antrim, Ireland, the eldest son of the Rev. John Dawson Hull. He attended Trinity College Dublin, receiving a diploma in civil engineering in 1849 and graduating with a B.A. degree.

Hull joined the Geological Survey of Ireland and worked in Wales and on the Lancashire Coalfield. He worked for the Geological Survey of Scotland (1867–1868) and led an expedition to survey parts of Arabia Petraea and Palestine (1883). He became Director of the Irish branch of the Survey and retired in 1891.

Hull was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1855. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1867. Hull was President of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland in 1873. He was conferred an honorary LL.D. degree by the University of Glasgow in 1879. Hull was awarded the Murchison Medal in February 1890.

His daughter Charlotte Ferguson-Davie became a noted physician. He died at his home in Notting Hill, London, aged 88. Edward Hull's obituarist wrote of him, "He maintained the honour of a gentleman."

Family

Hull married in 1857 Mary Catherine Henrietta Cooke, daughter of Charles Turner Cooke, a surgeon in Cheltenham and his wife Catherine Bennett Cooke. They had a family of two sons and four daughters, who included Eleanor Hull and Charlotte Elizabeth Ferguson-Davie. Another daughter, Alice, married in 1896 John Hill Twigg (1841–1917) of the Indian Civil Service.