Herbert Maufe
Herbert Brantwood Maufe was a British geologist, who first recognised the structure of the Glencoe caldera, and was later the first director of the Geological Survey of Southern Rhodesia. He was awarded the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1930.
Early life and education
Maufe was born Herbert Muff in Ilkley, Yorkshire, to Henry Muff and Maude Alice Muff, née Smithies. He had a younger brother Edward, who became an architect, and a sister. Maufe went to school at Bradford Grammar School, and in 1897 took up a place at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He graduated with a first class degree in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1901, and was awarded the Harkness Prize for Geology. He was awarded an M.A. degree in 1926.In 1909, his father and uncles, Charles and Frederick, changed the family name by deed poll from Muff to Maufe, reverting to the old form of their surname.
Career
In 1901, Maufe joined the Geological Survey, and began his work in Scotland, working first on the Lanarkshire coalfield under Charles Clough, and later in the Western Highlands. He was also spent some time doing fieldwork in the west of Ireland, with George Lamplugh. In Western Scotland, Maufe was the first to recognise that both Glen Coe and Ben Nevis had formed as collapsed volcanic calderas; he also recognised the great overturned fold of Ballachulish; and the nature of the parallel dyke swarms of Etive and Mull. From December 1905 until September 1906, Maufe spent time working for the Colonial Service in the East Africa Protectorate, carrying out a geological survey of the new rail-cuttings along the length of the Uganda Railway, from Mombasa to Nairobi. Several of Maufe's field notebooks from 1906 are held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.In 1910, Maufe took up the position as the first director of the newly established geological survey of Southern Rhodesia, where he worked for the rest of his career. He established the base for the survey in Bulawayo, and set about reconnaissance geological mapping and prospecting for mineral deposits. During the First World War, Maufe was a Lieutenant with the Rhodesia Motor Volunteers, from 1914 to 1919.
He produced the first geological map of the country in 1922, and a second edition in 1928. Maufe retired from the survey in August 1934. In 1940, the new director of the survey, Ben Lightfoot, invited Maufe to return to assist the survey due to the loss of staff to wartime activities. Maufe worked again for the survey from December 1940 to May 1945. He subsequently returned to the United Kingdom overland.