The 2007 recipient of the Brady Medal: Professor John W. Murray

Abstract. The first recipient of the Brady Medal, which was presented on 7 November 2007, is Professor John W. Murray of the National Oceanographic Centre, University of Southampton. The awardee is singularly appropriate as Henry Bowman Brady studied (mainly benthic) foraminifera. John was also one of the speakers at the first open meeting of the then British Micropalaeontological Group when it met at Sheffield University in March 1971 under the Chairmanship of Professor Leslie R. Moore (one of the founding fathers of the TMS). Other speakers on that day included Charles Downie, Alan Higgins, Keith Gueinn, Eric Robinson, Ron Austin, Geoff Warrington, Gerry Orbell, Malcolm Hart, Geoff Eaton and Mike Boulter.

John was born in London in 1937 and was evacuated to the north of England during the Second World War. The family returned south to Worthing in 1953. As a teenager John asked his parents for a biological microscope with which he developed his interest in microscopy (both biological and geological). In 1956 he enrolled on the BSc (Hons) Geology programme at Imperial College (London University) in the first year of which he was introduced to foraminifera by David Carter, who also supervised a final year project on the planktonic foraminifera recovered from one of the early boreholes for the Channel Tunnel Site Investigation. For his PhD research (again supervised by David Carter) John elected to study the benthic foraminifera of Christchurch Harbour in Dorset. This involved regular sampling of the harbour sediments, staining the living foraminifera and taking measurements . . .