Frederic Harrison Edmunds
Tribute presented to University Council by Professor W.O. Kupsch, 15 April 1965.

After several weeks in hospital, and one operation, death came gently to Harry Edmunds on Sunday morning, February 28, 1965. With it ended the early phase of a now mature and growing petroleum industry in Saskatchewan-so much was the life of Frederic Harrison Edmunds intertwined with the history of oil exploration and development in his adopted country.

Frederic Edmunds in 1939 He was born in the small town of Hawarden, Flinshire, North Wales on January 27, 1898. Anyone who ever travelled with him through a place of the same name in southern Saskatchewan would be reminded of this, when invariably he would comment on the generally accepted mispronunciation of his native town. Apparently, Hawarden should sound like Harden. He would then smile, and his remark could be taken as an illustration of the vagaries of the English language, or as a lesson in either the geography of Wales, or his own personal history, but never as a criticism of the inhabitants of Canada, Saskatchewan, or Hawarden.

After having served in the Special Brigade, Royal Engineers, from 1917 to 1919, when he became injured in an accident that caused permanent damage to his leg, he went to the University of Liverpool where he obtained his BSc Honours in 1922 and his MSc in 1923. He took a combined course in chemistry and geology, the latter under P.G.H. Boswell, the distinguished pioneer in sedimentary geology. Thus the educational foundation was laid for Edmunds' later works in soils, glacial geology, stratigraphy, and exploration for petroleum. After graduation he started out as a chemist and geologist for a firebrick company, but in 1925 left the British Isles to settle in Canada, where hejoined the Department of Soils at the University of Saskatchewan. Four years later he was transferred to become the first professor in the then newly created Geology Department.

F.H. Edmunds, Professor of GeologyAs far as his achievements are concerned in the wide field of geological studies that he made his own, Professor Edmunds will be remembered most for his comprehension of the glacial geology of Saskatchewan, and for his part in the early development of the Lloydminster Oil Field. When partaking in the soil surveys during the period from 1925 to 1930, he built up a storehouse of knowledge on the surficial deposits of southern Saskatchewan . Only later in life, at the insistence of friends, he wrote on the history of deglaciation of this part of the world, but before publication he relied on lectures, field trips, supervision and information talks for transmitting his ideas to others, most of them his students. Similarly, his contributions to a better understanding of the Cretaceous System, and oil accumulations in rocks of that age, are mainly in notes, well logs, correlation charts, typewritten reports, and geological maps. His bibliography therefore gives only scant recognition to his true achievements which, so characteristically for Professor Edmunds, were through education and the spoken word. His influence on the geological fraternity was duly acknowledged when he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the Geological Society (London), a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, a member of the Councils of both the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and the Geological Association of Canada. The provincial government appointed him to the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Conservation Board when that body was established in 1952, a post he held until his death.

Within this framework of his life also belonged his most active spare-time interest, which was in drama. Not only was he president of Saskatoon's Little Theatre Club during its most successful years, but at the same time he was a leading officer of the Saskatchewan Drama League, an organization which set the pattern for theatre extension-work in the whole of Canada. It was largely through his efforts and influence that the University of Saskatchewan established the first department of drama in the Commonwealth.

Slight of build, afflicted with diabetes, and troubled by his heart, Professor Edmunds nevertheless carried an unusually heavy work load. The door to this office was always open for staff, students, and his many friends alike. He had to use quiet evenings and Sunday mornings to get the administrative tasks done that fell on him after he became Head of the Department of Geological Sciences in 1961. Also, he never let his health interfere with his desire to travel, and made a trip around the world during his sabbatical leave in 1955-1956. He kept in contact with the many friends he had in Ticket for Memorial Scholarship Donationorganizations that he joined, which included the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the American Geophysical Union, the Saskatchewan Geological Society and various provincial and federal engineering societies. In his outside interests too, he was not merely a bystander, but took an active part in the administration of amateur organizations such as the Saskatoon Archaeological Society.

How he would have enjoyed retirement, which was to come in June, 1965! He would have known how to fill time to the fullest, but alas, this was not to be.

His wife, the former Mabel Workman (who was also a geology student under Professor Boswell), his three married sons, David, Hugh and Roger, and his nine grandchildren can take comfort in the knowledge that their husband, father, and grandfather will long be remembered for his kindness, understanding, cheerfulness, and industry by his many friends in the university and the profession.


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