Archibald Lamont

Archibald Lamont FRSE FGS (1907-1985) was a Scottish geologist, palaeontologist and Scottish Nationalist writer and politician. He named the trilobite genus Wallacia after William Wallace.

Born on 21 October 1907 at Ardbeg Villa, Rothesay, Bute, the son of lawyer John McNab Lamont and Barbara Mathie, he was educated at Port Bannatyne School and Rothesay Academy (1918-25). Lamont studied at Glasgow University, graduating MA (1928), BSc (1932) and PhD (1935). He was active in the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association and wrote extensively for the university magazine, under various pseudonyms. In the 1950s, he was active in the Scottish National Congress.

Lamont married Rose Bannatyne Mackinlay in 1936. He began his academic career as assistant lecturer (1936), then lecturer (1944), in geology at Birmingham University. He was then appointed Carnegie Research Fellow at Edinburgh University (1945-55).

Lamont was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 6 March 1950, upon the proposal of Sir Edward B Bailey, Arthur Holmes, John G C Anderson and Frederick W Anderson.

He was also a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, and a member of the Edinburgh Geological Society and the Geological Society of Glasgow.

He died on 16 March 1985.

References

• Royal Society of Edinburgh Year Book, 1986, 190-1.