Mr John R. Harpum (Earth Science and Engineering 1947)

Provided by Mr Richard Harpum

DR JOHN RICHARD HARPUM (1926 - 2008)

John Harpum, B.Sc., A.R.C.S., Ph.D., geologist, petrologist, ornithologist and university lecturer, died peacefully in Doncaster Royal Infirmary on 17 December 2008, aged 82.  Before his retirement in 1991, John was Principal Lecturer in Geology at Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education and was popularly known simply as 'Doc'. 
John was born in Burham, south of Chatham, Kent on 17 July 1926. His father, Sidney, worked as an electrical engineer for the Admiralty.  In July 1931, soon after John's sister, Freda, was born, the family moved to Malta where Sidney worked as Inspector of Electrical Fitters in the Naval Dockyard. The family lived in Sliema and John attended Tigne Garrison School.

In 1934, the family returned to England and moved to Portsmouth, where Sidney worked at HM Dockyard.  John attended Portsmouth Grammar School and when the family moved to Chatham in 1938, he attended Kings School Rochester, where he was a chorister.  During the War years, the family lived in Kingston-upon-Thames, where John attended Kingston Grammar School.  It was here that he learned to row and to play the flute. 

From 1944 to 1947, John studied geology at Imperial College, London.  After graduating, he joined the Colonial Service and went to Africa to join the Geological Survey in Dodoma in central Tanganyika (now Tanzania), starting work in November 1947.

In 1949 he met Bea, a teacher at Mbeya School in southern Tanganyika, whom he married in Mbeya on 24 June 1950.  They had two sons, Richard, born in July 1951 during leave in the UK, and Charles, born in Dar-es-Salaam in March 1953.  The family lived in Dodoma, but John spent much of his time in the early years on safari carrying out field work.  He learned both Swahili and the local Wagogo language. 
Between 1947 and 1960 he spent some 36 months in the field mapping approximately 3,500 square miles of Tanganyika, mainly in the Livingstone Mountains in the south.  He visited other countries in the region, including in Madagascar.  As a petrologist and mineralogist, he organised the laboratories in Dodoma, producing thousands of mineral and rock specimen slides.  He was also the official Government Diamond Inspector for 8 years.  His extensive field and laboratory work formed the basis of his Ph.D. thesis, which was awarded by Imperial College in 1955.  He published and edited a large number of papers, including the 300,000-word, Summary of the Geology of Tanganyika - Part V - Structure and Geotectonics of the Pre-Cambrian.   In 1960 he was made Acting Deputy Director of the Geological Survey and helped to coordinate the town's reception of Belgian refugees during the Congo Crisis.

When Tanganyika gained self-government from Britain in May 1961, the family decided to return to the UK prior to full independence.  After a few months living in Chelsfield, Kent with John's parents, they moved to Penrith in Cumberland, where John took up an appointment as a science teacher at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School.  He later became head of the Geology Department.  During his time in Penrith, John extensively explored the geology of the Lake District.

In 1968, the family moved to Cheltenham, where John took up an appointment at St. Paul's College. In his twenty three years of service there he developed a notable research career in geology and demonstrated his qualities as an outstanding teacher: courteous but firm; popular and respected by both his colleagues and all geology students.  He led numerous field trips for students.  The quality of his lecturing was matched by his enthusiasm as a field teacher.  He ended his career as Principal Lecturer in Geology.  He continued to publish papers, primarily on igneous and metamorphic petrology.

In 1968, John was appointed the founding secretary of the Association of Teachers of Geology.  He became a member of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) Geology and Environmental Panel, a tutor for the Open University and a member of the validations panels.  In July 1991 he retired from the College and in November of that year was awarded an Honorary Research Fellowship.

John was one of the founders of what became the Cheltenham Bird Club and remained an active member until his retirement.  For many years he led an extremely popular adult education course in ornithology and also had an article on crows published in Birds of the Western Palearctic.

In his retirement, John remained busy, maintaining his interests in ornithology, music, natural history, meteorology, astronomy and model-making.  However, in 2002, he started to show signs of Alzheimer's disease and in 2003 moved into a residential home in Cheltenham. 

In February 2005, Bea died, and John was moved to a residential home at Tickhill near Doncaster, close to where Richard and his wife, Linda, live. His mental condition progressively deteriorated and on 15 December 2008, he was admitted to Doncaster Royal Infirmary suffering from double pneumonia.  He died two days later.  Most people's lasting memory of John will be that he was not only a brilliant man and enthusiastic teacher but was a real gentleman with a charming sense of humour.