Richard Fortey | |
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 Fortey in 2014 | |
| Born | Richard Alan Fortey (1946-02-15)15 February 1946 |
| Died | 7 March 2025(2025-03-07) (aged 79) |
| Awards | Frink Medal (2000) Fellow of the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize (2006) Linnean Medal (2006) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Paleontology |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge Natural History Museum |
| Thesis | Stratigraphy, Palaeoecology and Trilobite Faunas of the Valhallfonna Formation NY Friesland, Spitsberge |
| Doctoral advisor | Harry B. Whittington |
Richard Alan Fortey (15 February 1946 – 7 March 2025) was a Britishpalaeontologist, natural historian, writer and television presenter, who served as president of theGeological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007. As a paleontologist, he specialised intrilobites and other extinct arthropods, as well as the life andpaleogeography of thePaleozoic era, particularly theOrdovician. He wrote popular science books, notablyLife: An Unauthorised Biography (1998) andEarth: An Intimate History (2005). Among other honors, he won theLewis Thomas Prize and theRoyal Society'sMichael Faraday Award.[1]
Fortey was born inEaling,West London in 1946, to Frank Fortey, who ran two fishing tackle shops, and Margaret Wilshin. He spent much of his early years "half-wild in the countryside" near Newbury in Berkshire, where his family owned a caravan and later a cottage by a chalk stream.[2]
During a trip toPembrokeshire when he was 14, Fortey discovered his firsttrilobite. He recalled:
The rock simply parted around the animal like some sort of revelation. Surely what I held was the textbook come alive. The long, thin eyes of the trilobite regarded me and I returned the gaze. More compelling than any pair of blue eyes, there was a shiver of recognition across 500 million years.[3]
He won a place atEaling Grammar School for Boys. While preparing to sit his scholarship exams forKing's College, Cambridge, his father died in a car crash.[2] He read Natural Sciences specialising in geology[4][5] and got a first class degree in 1968. His natural sciences tutor as an undergraduate wasHarry B. Whittington,[2] one of the world’s foremost experts on trilobites.
As a 21-year-old undergraduate, Fortey went on an expedition toSpitsbergen in the archipelago ofSvalbard collecting triobites. PerThe Times, "With the sole company of an older student with whom he had 'little in common', Fortey spent weeks huddling in tents as blizzards ripped across the tundra, armed with a stack of Russian novels such asWar and Peace."[2] The trilobites he discovered attracted international attention, including from the palaeontologist David Bruton, who organised a second expedition to Spitsbergen in 1971 to collect further samples. All the 100 species of trilobites he discovered were new to science and provided the basis for his PhD.[6][2]
He received a PhD and DSc from theUniversity of Cambridge. He did his PhD under Whittington.[2]
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Ealing Grammar School had a geology teacher who took Fortey in his school class toLondon'sNatural History Museum. He "pointed to a door where, he said, lived 'experts who work on fossils'." Fortey recalled thinking "I’d like to be that."[7] In 1970, he became a research fellow at the Natural History Museum, and spent his entire career there as a palaeontologist.[8] He retired in 2006.[7] His speciality was trilobites andgraptolites, especially those from theOrdovician and their systematics,evolution and modes of life. He was also involved in research on Ordovicianpalaeogeography and correlation;arthropod evolution, especially the origin of major groups and the relationships between divergence times, as revealed by molecular evidence and thefossil record. He wrote about the museum's history inDry Store Room No. 1.[9]
Fortey authored popular science books on a range of subjects including geology, palaeontology, evolution and natural history. His first popular book wasFossils: The Key to the Past (1982). He explained “When people look slightly surprised as to how I could spend all day apparently studying one trilobite, I have to explain that actually I’m a historian of several hundred millions of years, so there’s plenty to do.” He recalled a “rather pompous” essay byAldous Huxley about the distinction between science and letters. Fortey said “I’d very much like to erase that distinction by example. So I’ve used some novelistic tricks in all my books, quite consciously, I suppose.” He wroteLife: An Unauthorised Biography (1998) andEarth: An Intimate History (2005).[7]
From 2012, he was a television presenter appearing onBBC Four presenting natural history programmes; was Collier Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology at the Institute of Advanced Studies in theUniversity of Bristol 2002 and visiting professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Oxford 1999–2009.
Fortey appeared in several ofDavid Attenborough's programmes, including the second episode ofLost Worlds, Vanished Lives (1989), andFirst Life (2010), travelling with the presenter to theAtlas Mountains to find and film trilobite fossils. He contributed to the speculativeDiscovery Channel documentary seriesThe Future Is Wild.
In 2012, Fortey presented theBBC Four seriesSurvivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures, which looked at species that had survivedextinction events.[10] In 2013, he presented the BBC Four programmeThe Secret Life of Rock Pools, which aired on 16 April 2013.[11]
In 2014, Fortey presented the BBC Four three part seriesFossil Wonderlands: Nature's Hidden Treasures,[12] followed byThe Magic of Mushrooms, in which he showed that fungi had close but still poorly understood inter-relationships with plants and animals including man.In 2016, he presented the BBC Four programmeNature’s Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution, a three part series onisland biogeography.[13]
He appeared onBBC Two'sUniversity Challenge – The Professionals in 2004, as a member of the Palaeontological Association team, who beat theEden Project.[1]
Using the money he made from his TV work Fortey bought four acres of woodland inLambridge Wood, the section of the wood being called Grim’s Dyke Wood (Named afterGrim's Ditch) and he wrote up his investigation into its fauna and flora in the book:The Wood for the Trees.[14]
Fortey died after a short illness on 7 March 2025, at the age of 79.[1]
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For his research, he won theGeological Society of London'sLyell Medal, the Linnean Society of London's Linnean Medal for Zoology, the Zoological Society of London's Frink Medal and theGeological Society of Glasgow's T. N. George Medal. In 1997, he was elected as a fellow of theRoyal Society. Fortey was elected president of theGeological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007 and was awarded honorary degrees by theUniversity of St Andrews; theOpen University; theBirmingham University andLeicester University. He has also been president of the Palaeontological Association and Palaeontographical Society; Fortey also served on the councils of the Systematics Association; the Royal Society; the Palaeontographical Society (ex president); the British Mycological Society (vice president), and on the Stratigraphy Committee of the Geological Society of London; served on the editorial boards of theTerra Nova; thePalaeontographica Italiana; theHistorical Biology; theBiological Proceedings of the Royal Society of London and theBiology Letters. In 2009, he was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature.[15]
His science writing earned accolades, including the Natural World Book of the Year award forThe Hidden Landscape (1994).Life: An Unauthorised Biography (1998) andEarth: An Intimate History (2005) were shortlisted for theRhône-Poulenc Prize.Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution (2001) was shortlisted theSamuel Johnson Prize.Life: an Unauthorised Biography was listed as one of ten Books of the Year byThe New York Times.[16]He won the 2003Lewis Thomas Prize and the 2006Michael Faraday Prize for the public communication of science.[1]
He also turned his pen to writing dinosaur poems for children and even a spoof book on theRubik's Cube. Fortey was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the2023 New Year Honours for services to palaeontology and geology.[17]
He also penned humorous titles under two pseudonyms:[18]
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