Biography

British surgeon and geologist from Nottingham who received his MD from Heidleburg (1839). He settled in South Africa (1820) with his family and after qualifying in medicine, joined his father's medical practice (1839) in Grahamstown. He was the first doctor in South Africa to administer an anaesthetic. A man of many interests, Atherstone is best known as a geologist. He was one of the pioneers of South African geology and a founder of the Geological Society of South Africa at Johannesburg. He was also the first geologist to identify a diamond in South Africa (1867), a white pebble that had been found by Stephanus Erasmus Jacobs, the son of a farmer near Hopetown. Later named the 'Eureka' diamond, the discovery led to the establishment of the South African diamond industry. Atherstone collected palaeontological material and named many fossil reptilia from the Karroo beds, presenting specimens to the British Museum in London. He also collected South African plants and sent material to a number of European botanists. Strychnos atherstonei Harv. in the Loganiaceae is one of a number of plants named after him, sometimes treated as the distinct genus Atherstonea Pappe (1862).

Biography

British surgeon and geologist from Nottingham who received his MD from Heidleburg (1839). He settled in South Africa (1820) with his family and after qualifying in medicine, joined his father's medical practice (1839) in Grahamstown. He was the first doctor in South Africa to administer an anaesthetic. A man of many interests, Atherstone is best known as a geologist. He was one of the pioneers of South African geology and a founder of the Geological Society of South Africa at Johannesburg. He was also the first geologist to identify a diamond in South Africa (1867), a white pebble that had been found by Stephanus Erasmus Jacobs, the son of a farmer near Hopetown. Later named the 'Eureka' diamond, the discovery led to the establishment of the South African diamond industry. Atherstone collected palaeontological material and named many fossil reptilia from the Karroo beds, presenting specimens to the British Museum in London. He also collected South African plants and sent material to a number of European botanists. Strychnos atherstonei Harv. in the Loganiaceae is one of a number of plants named after him, sometimes treated as the distinct genus Atherstonea Pappe (1862).