Quick Facts
Biography
Sir John Smith Flett KBE FRSE FRS FGS (26 June 1869 – 26 January 1947) was a Scottish physician and geologist.
Early life
Born in Kirkwall, Orkney, the son of the merchant and baillie James Ferguson Flett and Mary Ann Copland, he was educated at Kirkwall Burgh School, George Watson's College in Edinburgh, and Edinburgh University (MA; BSc 1892; MB CM 1894; DSc 1900; LLD 1912).
Flett worked as a general practitioner. He served as Lecturer in Petrology at Edinburgh University, and as Petrographer (1901), Assistant Director (1911) and Director (1920–3) of the Geological Survey of Great Britain.
Expeditions
Flett participated in several geological expeditions. He went with Tempest Anderson to observe eruptions in the Caribbean in 1902 and 1907.
Awards and later life
Flett was awarded the Neill Prize (1898–1901) of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1900, upon the proposal of James Geikie, Ben Peach, John Horne and Ramsay Traquair. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1913, received the Bolitho Medal of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall in 1917, made KBE in 1925 and won the Wollaston Medal in 1935.
Flett served as President of the Edinburgh Geological Society, President of the Mineralogical Society, and President of the geology section of the British Association (1921).
Flett died in Ashdon, Essex.
Family
He married Mary Jane Meason in 1897, and had four children.
One son William Roberts Flett FRSE followed in his footsteps and was also a geologist of note.
Recognition
In the mid 1970s, the then new, glass-faced structure built in the grounds of the South Kensington Museums complex between the Geological Museum and the British Museum (Natural History) containing a lecture theatre, was named in his honour.