Brian Windley

We have learned, with sadness of the death of Professor Brian Windley, Emeritus Professor in Structural Geology, who passed away at his home in Great Malvern on 6 March 2025, at the age of 89

Professor Aftab Khan writes:

Brian Windley was in the first group of lecturers to be appointed by Peter Sylvester-Bradley, the first Bennett Professor of Geology at the University of Leicester. The institution was expanding rapidly after it gained University status in 1957, and it was keen to develop its science faculty. The growth in Geology was a timely development as the subject was undergoing a revolution in our understanding of how the Earth works through studies in magnetism, seismology, radiometric dating, and from observations beneath the sea. The resulting Plate Tectonic hypothesis also changed our models in the exploration for the resources mankind needs for its ever-increasing population, and in the study of global environmental hazards. New undergraduate and postgraduate courses emerged, and by the time the first UK National Review of Earth Sciences was carried out in 1989, only three departments in the UK were rated as being ‘outstanding’: Cambridge, Leeds and Leicester. 

Brian taught courses in Structural Geology & Map Interpretation, Metamorphic Petrology, Photogeology, Tectonics, and Evolution of the Earth. He ran field courses to Skye, Arran, Anglesey (second year), Norway, Bulgaria, the Balkans, France, northwest Scotland, Cornwall and Devon, Switzerland and northern Italy. 

Brian Frederick Windley was born on 19 March 1936. He obtained his BSc degree at the University of Liverpool, in 1960; his PhD at Exeter in 1963; and a DSc from Leicester in 1978. He started his career as a geologist with the Geological Survey of Greenland before being appointed at Leicester in 1968 where he was promoted to a Readership in 1975 and later as Professor in 1982 until his retirement in 2001 when he was made an Emeritus Professor. He has also been a visiting Professor at various Universities in Japan and China since then. 

Brian was an outstanding field geologist and superb metamorphic petrologist who was keen to exploit the new tools for the analysis of minerals under the microscope.  His scientific output was phenomenal with over 300 papers in refereed journals and books widely used by students and researchers. Early in his career he wrote some widely quoted key papers on the Precambrian as well as his edited volume The Early History of the Earth (1976) and his book The Evolving Continents (1977) incorporating the ideas from the Plate Tectonic Hypothesis. He was frequently invited to speak as well as to organise international scientific meetings. 

He supervised more than 50 research students and postdocs from many countries to work on mountain belts in Greenland, Scotland, Africa, India, Siberia, Mongolia, the Cordilleran Batholiths, the Himalayas and Karakoram, northeast China, Madagascar, and Tien Shan.

He held grants totalling over £1 million for field projects and equipment 

He served the international community with distinction as a member of committees and Councils as well as his inspirational research leadership. He also served his University well as Head of Department and a member of its Boards and committees. 

Awards and Honours

• Lyell Fund, Geological Society of London 1975
• Bigsby Medal, Geological Society of London 1977
• Murchison Medal, Geological Society of London 1985
• Bronze Medal, University of Helsinki, Finland 1991
• Foreign Fellow, Pakistan Academy of Sciences 2008
• Honorary Fellow,  Geological Society of America 2015
• Festschrift 1. Geol. Soc., London, Sp. Publ. 338. 2010
• (The Evolving Continents: Understanding the Processes of Continental Growth)
• Festschrift 2. Tectonophysics, special issue 2015

Brian dedicated his books to his wife Judith who survives him. She was his lifelong companion and an enthusiastic supporter of his work.