Abstract
DR. VAUGHAN CORNISH was a son of the vicarage, one of the most valuable groups in our national life, and his father‘s articles on Nature in south-eastern England in the late nineteenth century are still remembered for their intrinsic value and the beautiful form in which they were given. Dr. Cornish therefore had a good heritage of a kind he was to develop by his own efforts to understand, and to spread the understanding of, natural beauty. He was born in 1862 when his father was vicar of Debenham, Suffolk. After attending St. Paul‘s School, he studied chemistry at the University of Manchester, ultimately taking the D.Sc. degree and becoming director of technical education under the Hampshire County Council. In 1891 he married Ellen Agnes Provis and, with her, planned travel and research. His earlier researches, continued throughout life, were on waves —of water, snow and sand, on sea beaches, sandbanks, sand-dunes and snowdrifts. The Royal Geographical Society recognized his work by giving him the Gill Memorial Award in 1900. Earthquake waves were also studied in Jamaica in 1907, when both Dr. and Mrs. Cornish were injured ; and the results of the inquiries were published in the Geographical Journal of 1912. In 1903, Dr. and Mrs. Cornish went around the world, making a special study of Japan, and later on they paid several visits to Panama to study the Canal while it was under construction. In 1911, Mrs. Cornish died and her husband some time afterwards published "The Travels of Ellen Cornish"as a tribute to her memory.
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Dr. Vaughan Cornish. Nature 161, 839 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161839a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161839a0