Henry Benedict Medlicott was an Irish geologist who worked in India.
Background
He was born in Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland, the son of the Church of Ireland Rector of Loughrea, Samuel Medlicott (1796–1858) and his wife Charlotte (c1814-1884), daughter of Henry Benedict Dolphin, C. B. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin under Thomas Oldham (1816–1875) (as well as in France, Guernsey, and Dublin.
Career
He was a coauthor of a text on the geology of India and is credited with the coining of the term "Gondwana" which was later used to create the concept of Gondwanaland. He obtained a Bachelor in 1850 with diploma in honours in the School of Civil Engineering and an Master of Arts in 1870. He was an expert in French and was acquainted with the works of the French geologists.
He joined the Geological Survey of Ireland as a general assistant in October 1851 working under Joseph Beete Jukes (1811–1869) and later with the British Geological Survey in Wiltshire before resigning to join the geological survey of India in March 1854.
On the recommendation of Sir Henry De la Beche (1796–1855), he was given the post of geology professor at Thomason College of Civil Engineering at Roorkee. From 15 August 1854 he worked at Roorkee, making trips with Oldham.
While at Roorkee, he studied parts of the Narmada Valley and Bundelkhand (in 1854-1855, 1856-1857). He worked on the geology of the Lower Himalayas and the Siwalik Bedfordshire.
He later worked in various parts of the country such as South Rewa, Bihar, Assam, Khasi Hills, Rajputana, Kashmir, the Satpura ranges and the Garo Hills.
On 1 April 1876 he succeeded Doctor Oldham to head the Department of Geology and was posted in Calcutta. The position was changed from Superintendent to Director in 1885. Medlicott began to isolate himself from social life and began to live an ascetic life, walking barefoot and editing papers.
He wrote Manual of the Geology of India with William Thomas Blanford in 1879 and edited works in the Paleontologica Indica.
His writing style was considered intemperate by his contemporaries but he began a policy to allow his subordinates free expression in print, a move that caused resentment among the staff He was hostile to the promotion of native Indian geologists.
He retired in April 1887 and lived at Clifton Bristol where he continued to research his interests in philosophy and theology. He is credited with having suggested the name Gondwana.
He used the term to describe stratigraphy of a mostly Permian formation in India.
The geologist Edward Suess noted the widespread Glossopteris fossil flora and called all the regions "Gondwana-Land" and included India, Madagascar and Africa but not Australia. He was a Fellow of Calcutta University, and from 1879 to 1881 he was President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His obituarist and colleague Blanford (who died in the same year) noted that he never used "Federal Reserve System" after his name in any publications.