F W Rudler Papers

The archive contains a small group of F W Rudler's correspondence; his lectures and preparatory manuscript notes, and material collected by him during his lifetime.

Frederick William Rudler was born in London on the 8th of July 1840. He began his career at the Museum of Practical Geology in 1861, where he was to remain until 1876. It was during this period, in 1869, that he accepted the role of Assistant Secretary of the Ethnological Society. He then took up a position as lecturer in natural science at the University of Wales College, Aberystwyth, and was to become one of the College's earliest professors of geology.

Rudler became Registrar of the Royal School of Mines in 1879, and held this position for a year. In the same year he was made Curator and Librarian of the Museum of Practical Geology, and would remain so until 1902. In 1880 he took up the role of President of the Anthropological Department of the British Association, and seven years later he began a two-year spell as President of the Geologists Association. Rudler's string of presidencies continued in 1898, when he entered into a year long per iod as President of the Anthropological Institute. In 1903, he was made President of the Essex Field Club, and the following year President of the S E Union of Scientific Societies.

Rudler published a great deal, and his works appear in various literary and scientific journals. He also acted as assistant editor on Ure's Dictionary of Arts and Manufacturers, (1875), and contributed both to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Thorpe's Dictionary of Applied Chemistry. He died on the 23rd of January 1915.

The papers may be consulted through application by e-mail to: archives@aber.ac.uk or by post to: Aberystwyth University, Archives, Information Services, Llandinam Building, Penglais, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB. Tel: 01970 628593.

Description compiled by Rhian Phillips, Archives Hub project archivist, with reference to Who Was Who, Vol. I, 1897-1916, (London: A and C Black, 1920), p. 616.

Basic finding aid available on request from Archives staff.

Further papers of F W Rudler can be found at The British Geological Survey Library.