Sir Albert Ernest Kitson, (21 March 1868 – 8 March 1937) was a British-Australian geologist, naturalist, and winner of the Lyell Medal in 1927.
Early life Kitson was born in North Street, Audenshaw, Cheshire, England, the son of John Kitson from Manchester and Margaret, née Neil, from Edinburgh, Scotland. On his father's side the family had been stonemasons, while his maternal grandfather was a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Albert's early childhood was spent in Nagpur in the Central Provinces of India where his family moved when he was a year old. Around 1876 they emigrated to Victoria. Here John and Margaret taught at a State School in the gold-mining settlement of Enoch's Point in the Victorian Alps before John was appointed as head teacher of the, recently created, North Winton State School near Benalla. John died of angina in 1879 and so until her death in 1898 Margaret took over the running of the school which was attended by both her surviving children – Albert and his younger brother (John) Sidney.
Career Albert Kitson joined the Public Service in Victoria in 1886 as a clerk. Whilst still employed in this function he also carried out geological field work. This fired a passion and encouraged him to take up part-time studies in geology at the Working Men's College (now the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) and subsequently at the University of Melbourne. By 1903, he had risen to become second-in-command of the Geological Survey of Victoria of which he subsequently became senior geologist and for a time acting director. Euclid:Eucalyptus kitsoniana http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org:8080/euclid/data/02050e02-0108-490e-8900-0e0601070d00/media/Html/Eucalyptus_kitsoniana.htm He contributed a number of studies on the mineral resources of Victoria and the Glacial beds of Tasmania. In 1907, Albert Kitson recommended that the Buchan Caves in Gippsland, Victoria be set aside as a reservation to protect them from vandalism.A.E. Kitson, 'Proposed reservation of limestone caves in the Buchan District, Eastern Gippland', Rec. geol. Surv. Vict., II(I), 1907, pp. 37–44. See also as well as Brian Finlayson & Elery Hamilton-Smith, Beneath the Surface: A Natural History of Australian Caves, University of New South Wales Press, 2003, p. 166.
After his initial work in Victoria, Kitson spent much of his subsequent professional life in Africa. Recognising his geological talents Professor J. W. Gregory recommended him for a post as Principal mineral surveyor in Southern NigeriaJohn Frederick Norman Green, 'Obituary: Albert Ernest Kitson', Geological Society, Quarterly Journal, no. 94, 1938, p. CXXVI where he went on to discover coalNATIONAL ARCHIVES ENUGU, Series number, File number CSO.29/1900-8/3/5, 'Mineral Survey Progress Report by M.A.E. Kitson, 1908' and lignite.Obituary notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, Number 19, November 1950, Volume 7, p. 74. In 1909 he discovered black bituminous coal along the Enugu-Udi escarpment in Nigeria and high hopes were placed in such a potentially important coal deposit. The town of Port Harcourt was built in 1912 as an outlet for this Nigerian coal and was linked with Enugu via a railway line that extended northwards to Kaduna. The Enugu coal fields went into production in 1915 and caused an important immigration of population to Enugu earning the town the nickname of the "Coal City".Nigerians-Abroad – South-East – Feature: The changing face of Enugu The Nigerian coal turned out to be of poor quality and was used mainly for domestic consumption within the colonies, providing an important power resource for the railways and electricity.Maria Sophia Steyn, "Oil politics in Ecuador and Nigeria: a perspective from environmental history on the struggles between ethnic minority groups, multinational oil companies and national governments", Doctoral Thesis (History), University of the Free State Bloemfontein, South Africa, 2003, pp. 147–148.
Although Kitson's mission was to discover mineral deposits which might be exploited by the British colonial authority he always combined this with a paternalistic concern to improve the material situation of the local populations. In 1912, after hearing a lecture by J. P. Unstead about the climatic conditions for wheat cultivation in North America, Kitson's response was to ask whether Unstead's findings might be applied to Nigeria. Kitson argued: "Could a wheat-growing industry be established it would be a great boon to the people of West Africa." In paternalistic tones he went on: "It might in Northern Nigeria replace to a large extent the less valuable millet now grown there, while in Southern Nigeria it could materially supplement the staple foods- cassava, yams and maize".A. E. Kitson in response to J. F. Unstead, "The climatic limits of wheat cultivation, with special reference to North America", The Geographical Journal, Vol. XXXIX, No. 5, May 1912, p. 443.
After Nigeria, Kitson continued his explorations in Africa, along with Edmund Thiele, working particularly in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) between 1913 and 1930 where he was first Principal of the Mineral Survey and afterwards Director of the Geological Survey. Kitson travelled round the colony by train and bicycle and discovered sizeable mineral deposits including bauxite"A Special Correspondent", "The Volta River Project", African Affairs, Vol. 55, No. 221 (October 1956), pp. 287–293. See also Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong, Between the Sea and the Lagoon, James Currey, 2002, p. 164, which reveals that Kitson discovered extensive bauxite deposits on Mount Ejuanema in Kwahu. . and manganese. He discovered Bauxite, the raw material of alumina, in the Atewa Range near Kibi in 1914. The first manganese ore which he discovered was in May 1914 when he found occurrences near the Sekondi-Kumassi Railway about from Tarkwa.African Affairs – Sign In Page These deposits were important to Britain's war effort, as supplies of these minerals from other locations had become difficult. During the last year of the war 32 000 tons of manganese, used in munitions production, were shipped to Britain from the deposits Kitson had found in the Gold Coast. Then in February 1919, together with his colleague E. O. Teale (formerly Thiele), he discovered on the Birim River the first deposits of diamonds to be found in the Gold Coast.N. R. Junner & F. A. Bannister, The Diamond Deposits of the Gold Coast with Notes on Other Diamond Deposits in West Africa, GCGS, Gold Coast, 1943. The diamonds were of small size but high quality.J. W. Gregory, 'Survey of India General Report, 1924–1925', The Geographical Journal, Vol. 69, No. 2 (February 1927), p. 148. See also Eric Bruton, Diamentes, Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 1983. Kitson observed that they were good crystals showing octahedron and dodecahedron.A. E. Kitson, Report on the Discovery of Diamonds at Abomosa, Northwest of Kibbi, Eastern Province, Gold Coast, Govt. Press, Accra, Gold Coast, 1919. This proved to be a particularly valuable source of diamonds and the exportation of diamonds grew spectacularly. In 1934 the of diamonds exported from the Gold Coast accounted for 39% of the world's supply that year."Reviews of books on Africa", African Affairs, Volume 43, Issue 170, 1 January 1944, p. 46.
Kitson is also associated with the development of hydro-electric power in the Gold Coast/Ghana.William M Adams, Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in the Third World, 2001, p. 320; James Pickett, Hans Wolfgang Singer, Robert Kweku Atta Gardiner (eds), Towards economic recovery in sub-Saharan Africa, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 66; Pierre Cappelaere, Ghana, les chemins de la démocratie, Paris, 2007, p. 182; Philip Briggs, Ghana, Bradt Travel Guide, 4th edition, 2007, p. 245; Dominique Auzias (et al), Le Petit Futé Ghana, Paris, 2008, p. 127; see also: http://www.beg.utexas.edu/energyecon/IDA/USAID/RC/Guide_to_Electric%20Power_in_Ghana.pdf . See also In 1915 he was the first to recommend building a dam at Akosombo on the Volta River to generate hydro-electricity,African Affairs – Sign In Page hoping to use this to process the bauxite deposits that he had discovered in the Kwahu plateau the previous year. It was not until 1965 that the idea of the dam was put into effect when Ghana's first black president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, decided to generate hydropower as a means of modernizing the economy.. This development created Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world. https://www.modernghana.com/news/254075/1/the-under-told-story-of-akosombo-the-gbedemah-fact.html
Late life After his retirement from the Gold Coast in 1930 Kitson moved to Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where he called his house "Benalta" (a reference to the original name of Benalla), as an indication of his enduring passion for Australia. Here he continued to be consulted on geological questions connected to Africa. In particular he reported on goldfields in Kenya during the so-called Kakamega Gold Rush of the early 1930s where gold-mining once again showed its disrespect for the rights of local communities and the environment.Priscilla M. Shilaro, "A Failed Eldorado: British Trusteeship, Luyia Land Rights and the Kakamega Gold Rush, 1930–1952", PHD (History), University of West Virginia, 2000, pp 154–6 & 180–186; see also: H. W. Tilman and Jim Perrin, H. W. Tilman: The Seven Mountain-Travel Books, 2004, p 71. See also: Marjorie R. Dilley, British Policy in Kenya Colony, London: Frank Cass, 1966, p. 265. In his report for the Colonial Office Kitson suggested that possibly as much as half of the gold being prospected was wasted by amateur techniques.John Frederick Norman Green, 'Obituary: Albert Ernest Kitson', Geological Society, Quarterly Journal, no. 94, 1938, p. CXXVII. In an article for the magazine The Spectator, Kitson compared the influx of amateur gold-prospectors to a similar situation in Klondike in Canada in 1897-8 : "The road to Kakamega now resembles a miniature 'trail of 98' without the snow. Old mining men, from ex-Klondyke Pioneers to Australian backwoodsmen, are hurrying to the spot".The Spectator, 12 December 1932. But it seems that Kitson's initial report had helped create the rush in the first place by highlighting the rich pickings available.Priscilla M. Shilaro, 'A Failed Eldorado: British Trusteeship, Luyia Land Rights and the Kakamega Gold Rush, 1930–1952', PHD (History), University of West Virginia, 2000, pp 180–182. As The Spectator noted: "Since the publication of Sir Albert Kitson's report, the population of the Kakamega goldfields had doubled". Kitson's article in this magazine merely fuelled the rush still further.