By Dr David Aubrey-Jones

It was a real privilege to be able to present Dr Austin Woodbridge with the prestigious Russell Society medal at a small presentation ceremony at the Natural History Museum on Monday 16th June.  The museum was thrilled and had laid on a special room and refreshments, with other volunteers and some museum staff in attendance (see photos).  The medal is awarded for outstanding services to Mineralogy and was last given in 2021

Austin started working at the museum as a volunteer on 17th of April 2002.  He was given the huge task of identifying, tracing, and curating specimens from the famous Ludlam collection which had been dispersed to various parts of the museum / storage when new galleries and exhibitions were developed in the 1980s.  Austin was helped initially by the late John Crocker (for 18 years), and more recently by other volunteers (Susan Tyzack, Nick Hawes and Michael Dunmore), with advice from Alan Hart, Peter Tandy, Mike Rumsey and Robin Hansen.  During this time, he has shown incredible commitment, working faithfully on the task for one or two days a week and has now been volunteering at the museum for an incredible 23 years. 

Henry Ludlam amassed his wonderful collection while working as a hosier, and upon his death in June 1880, bequeathed his collection to the Museum of Practical Geology.  The quality of the specimens in the collection is superb and was regarded at the time as “the most complete and probably the finest collection of minerals ever made by a private collector” (Davies 1881).

Austen is an example to us all, through his contribution to British mineralogy in carefully curating and reconstituting the wonderful Ludlam collection for the past 23 years.  The medal is very well deserved – well done Austin!

Our monthly zoom talks have moved to Friday and will start at the earlier time of 7.30pm (doors open at 7.15pm). The first talk of the season will be on Friday 17th October so put the date in your diary.

Chris Finch has been able to arrange a visit to a quarry in the Mendips but at short notice. See the Members’ page for more details.

The cabinets belonged to the late John Sheppard and I am helping his brother to disperse his collection and associated mineral stuff. Please send on to any of your mineral contacts who might be interested. These are nice solid units. The real issue is the ‘buyer’ will need a van. I don’t think they will go in any sort of estate car- Roy Starkey

See photos and dimensions

The Minutes of the 2025 AGM held in Penrith are now available by a link from the Members’ page.

Some changes to the constitution were agreed at the AGM and the revised constitution can be found on the appropriate page accessed by the dropdown menu from “About” on the menu bar.

Our last Zoom talk, which promises to be very interesting is by Dr Mike Simms who is Curator of Geology at the National Museums of Northern Ireland:

Meteorites: Messengers from the Solar System

Billions are spent sending people and machines to examine other worlds in our Solar System, yet we have samples from more than 100 of these worlds that arrived here for free. They are meteorites. Most are from asteroids, remnants of planetesimals that no longer exist as intact entities, and they can tell us about the formation and early history of our Solar System. Some are from the Moon or Mars and augment the information obtained by astronauts and robots. Most meteorites are composed of familiar minerals, although often in a form or context not found on Earth, with just a few minerals known only from meteorites. This talk will provide an overview of the different types of meteorites, the minerals that they contain, how they formed, and what they can tell us about the Solar System beyond our own planet.

Joining instructions are provided for Members on the Members page. Non-members are welcome to attend and should contact the membership secretary for details.

Readers of MBI2 may find it useful to refer to maps which show the most important mineral localities. These revised maps derived from MBI 2008 (courtesy of Liverpool University Press) are now available on the website under the Publications dropdown. The same page gives access to an amazing set of 3D images of many specimens that are illustrated in the book.

Tom Cotterell recently gave an excellent talk to The Society titled- Philip Rashleigh’s collection of minerals and its unique importance for researching the early history of copper arsenates from Cornwall. This was recorded and can be viewed by members using a link in the Virtual Talks section of the Members’ Page. The link will be available until the end of April.

Southern branch are hosting a zoom talk at 7.30pm on Friday 21st March by Colleen Thomson on Greenlaws Mine: The Forgotten Treasure of Weardale and the Recent discoveries. Please contact David Aubrey-Jones, if you have not already had an invite.

Could members please read the document relating to Personal Safety Equipment on the Safety webpage as this has been significantly revised, to bring it in line with current safety standards. All other guidance documents have been reviewed and headers and footers updated, without further changes.