Great, great grandson views Professor’s work

CAPTION: Hamish Johnston and Master and Deputy Principal Professor Colin Vincent admiring the new display CREDIT: University of St Andrews

The great, great grandson of a 19th Century University of St Andrews Professor has inspected a permanent memory to his great, great grandfather.

Hamish Johnston, who is a graduate of St Andrews and has been researching his great, great grandfather’s life, visited the University’s Irvine Building today (Monday 21 October 2002) – home to the School of Geography and Geosciences – where a framed photograph and mineral display have been erected in honour of Matthew Forster Heddle.

Heddle was born in Orkney in 1828. At the end of his medical degree course in Edinburgh, he went to Freiburg in Germany to study chemistry and mineralogy. He graduated M.D. from Edinburgh in 1851 and became President of the Edinburgh Geological Society for one year. He left medical practice in 1856 and chartered a boat to the Faroe Islands where he amassed a large collection of zeolite minerals.

He moved to St Andrews to become Assistant Professor of Chemistry to Professor Connell, who he eventually succeeded in 1862. Heddle remained Professor of Chemistry until 1883 and spent much of his time studying minerals. He was also involved in the excavation of fossil fishes at Dura Den. Most of his famous collection of minerals was bought by the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh but the University retains a modest collection, some of which will be on display in the School of Geography and Geosciences.

ENDS

Issued by Beattie Media on behalf of the University of St Andrews For more information please contact: Claire Grainger on 01334 462530, 07730 415 015 or email cg24@st- andrews.ac.uk View University press releases on- line at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk Ref: heddle/standrews/chg/18oct2002