Robert Millner Shackleton

Who was Robert Millner Shackleton?

Robert Millner Shackleton FRS was a British field geologist who developed an interest in the geology of East Africa. He initiated structural studies across orogenic belts in Tanzania-Zambia-Malawi, major studies across the Limpopo Belt and adjacent Archaean greenstone belts of Zimbabwe-Botswana-South Africa and projects across the orogenic systems of Egypt, Sudan and Kenya. Just prior to his death he was working on a detailed compilation of the Precambrian geology of East Africa. At the age of 75 he led a Royal Society geological traverse across Tibet, in collaboration with the Academica Sinica, Beijing.

Born in Purley, Surrey, he was educated at the Quakers' Sidcot School in Somerset and the University of Liverpool, graduating B.Sc. Geology with First Class Honours in 1930. He went on to research at Liverpool under P.G.H. Boswell on the geology of the Moel Hebog area of Snowdonia in North Wales, then won a Beit Fellowship at Imperial College, London, 1932-1934. The next year he was appointed Chief Geologist to Whitehall Exploration Ltd in Fiji but returned to Imperial College as Lecturer in Geology in 1936.