Edward Philip Frank "Ted" Rose is an English palaeontologist and geologist, best known as a historian of military aspects of geology.
Academic career From Emanuel School, in south-west London, Rose matriculated at St Edmund Hall in the University of Oxford in 1960. He took part in the Oxford Expedition to Cyrenaica 1961, later captained the St Edmund Hall fencing team, became Hall representative for the Oxford University Officers Training Corps, was elected secretary and later chairman of the Oxford University Geological Society, and in 1963 graduated as an Honorary Scholar of St Edmund Hall with First Class Honours in Natural Sciences: Geology. He remained at the Hall but transferred academic studies from the Department of Geology and Mineralogy to the Department of Zoology, funded by a research studentship from the UK Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, to undertake research on fossil echinoids (sea urchins) which he collected from Cenozoic limestones near Derna in Cyrenaica, north-east Libya.
On completing studies and submitting his thesis for a DPhil (Doctor of Philosophy) degree in 1966, Rose was immediately appointed to an Assistant Lectureship in Geology at Bedford College in the University of London. Granted tenure and promoted to Lecturer in 1968, he taught palaeontology and stratigraphy in this small department, sharing a heavy teaching and administrative load and additionally being elected to serve for two years as Secretary to the Bedford College Faculty of Science and its subordinate and associated committees, and for two periods as a member of the College's Academic Board.
In 1985 Bedford College merged with Royal Holloway College to form Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (now commonly known as Royal Holloway, University of London), and the formerly separate geology departments of Bedford, Chelsea and King's Colleges merged on the Royal Holloway site. Rose prepared the detailed feasibility plan for departmental merger, chaired the committee set up to formulate plans for a new building to accommodate the new geology department (much later to be renamed as the Department of Earth Sciences), and chaired the teaching committee that formulated its first degree programmes. He then led teaching of palaeontology and stratigraphy to first, second and third year undergraduates, chaired the department's undergraduate teaching committee for 12 of the next 15 years, and served as the department's ‘academic co-ordinator’ (effectively director of undergraduate studies) for the final eight of those years, having been promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1987 under ‘old regulations’ (whereby only 40% of staff in any university were allowed to hold status higher than that of lecturer). Between 1976 and 1999 nine PhD students and one MPhil student successfully completed research degrees under his supervision. He retired to a ‘teaching only’ position in 2000, on reaching the age of 60, and to an honorary research fellowship at Royal Holloway on full retirement in 2003.
Palaeontology Rose's interest in palaeontology began as a schoolboy. He cycled from his parental home in south London to collect fossils, especially echinoids, from the many quarries in Cretaceous chalk then accessible to the south and east of London. Encouraged by palaeontologists at the Natural History Museum in London (then known as the British Museum (Natural History)), he also developed an interest in Cenozoic fossils, on request donating several specimens collected from the London Clay to the Museum's collection – his name first appeared in a scientific paper when he was only 14 years old: in the ‘acknowledgements’ within ‘Additions to the London Clay fauna of Oxshott, Surrey’ by M.M. Brown and C. P. Castell, published in 1955 in The London Naturalist.
Echinoids that Rose found when participating in the Oxford Expedition to Cyrenaica 1961 prompted him to return to Libya in 1964 and to develop studies in the Derna District for his doctoral thesis. He continued research on echinoids after appointment to Bedford College, being a regular contributor (as a speaker and frequently a session chairman) to the series of International Echinoderm Conferences initiated in 1972, and to the European Echinoderm Conferences formally instituted in 1979 (following an earlier conference which he co-convened at Bedford College): at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA (1972), Rovinj Marine Institute, Yugoslavia (1976), Free University of Brussels, Belgium (1979), University of South Florida, USA (1981), University College Galway, Ireland (1984), University of Victoria, Canada (1987), University of Burgundy, France (1993), California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, USA (1996), and the University of Milan, Italy (1998). His participation ended only with his retirement from funded academic life in the year 2000. As sole or joint author, he published 29 articles on fossil or living echinoderms between 1972 and 1999, including the section on echinoids within Chapter 25 Echinodermata of The Fossil Record 2 (ed. M.J. Benton, 1993), a benchmark book published by the Palaeontological Association ().
Rose became an active member of the Palaeontological Association, elected to its Council (1969–1972) only three years after his appointment to Bedford College, elected as Membership Treasurer (1973–1978) and finally as a Vice-President (1978–1980), serving on the Council and its Executive and Publication Committees. He similarly served for ten years on the Council of the Palaeontographical Society (1975–1985), the final four of those years as a Vice-President.
In 1981 he was appointed a trustee of the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature (that from 1947 to 2015 facilitated the work of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature) on the recommendation of its secretary, R.V. Melville, who had served as the external examiner for his DPhil thesis, and was elected to serve on its committee of management from 1982 until his resignation in 2006, prior to potential house move.
Three of Rose's PhD students completed theses on fossil echinoids, four more theses on other palaeontological topics.
Geology From 1971, Rose extended work on limestones in the Mediterranean area begun by his DPhil thesis by contributing to the work of the IUGS (International Union of Geological Sciences) Regional Committee on Mediterranean Neogene Stratigraphy (RCMNS). He presented papers at the 5th International Congress on the Mediterranean Neogene (Lyon, France, 1971), 6th Congress (Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, 1975), 7th Congress (Athens, Greece, 1979), 8th Congress (Budapest, Hungary, 1985), and 9th Congress (Barcelona, Spain, 1990), as well as at an ad hoc Ecostratigraphy Colloquium (Montpellier, France, and Barcelona, Spain, 1987). He was co-convener, session chairman and speaker at a ‘Colloquium on Marine Neogene Megafaunal Palaeoenvironments and Biostratigraphy’ at the University of Athens in 1984; elected UK representative on the RCMNS Council for 1984–1985; and at the 7th Congress elected co-leader of the working group on ‘Marine Megafaunal Palaeoenvoronments and Biostratigraphy’.
From 1977 to project completion in 1983, Rose served (by invitation of the then Royal Society's British National Committee for the IUGS/UNESCO International Geological Correlation Programme) as UK national correspondent for Project 25 (Stratigraphic Correlation of the Tethys-Paratethys Neogene) and Project 117 (Correlation of events at the Mio-Pliocene Boundary). From 1978 to 1986 he was appointed a member of the IUGS Commission on Stratigraphy's ‘Working Party on the Palaeogene-Neogene Boundary’.
Rose was an invited speaker at the Second Symposium on the Geology of Libya, at Tripoli, in 1978; helped lead fieldwork for petroleum consultancies in Libya in 1978 and Oman in 1982; was briefly a visiting lecturer at the University of El Minia, Egypt, in 1985; and under the auspices of the British Council, a visiting lecturer and D-ès-Sc examiner at the University of Tunis, Tunisia, in 1987.
Rose's research interests in limestone stratigraphy and palaeoenvironments were focused for some years on the Maltese islands (he was co-author of a Field Guide to Mid-Tertiary Carbonate Facies of Malta published by the Palaeontological Association for a field trip for which he was convening leader, in 1981), but subsequently and even more productively on Gibraltar. From 1989 he has, as sole or joint author, generated over 40 publications on the geology of this famous ‘Rock’, including the first large-scale printed map of the peninsula and an accompanying field guide, plus papers on topics including the stratigraphy, depositional palaeoenvironments, dolomitisation, brachiopod palaeontology, micropalaeontology, hydrogeology, and tunnelling excavation of the Jurassic ‘Gibraltar Limestone’, aspects of its Quaternary geomorphology and sedimentary cover, and the history of research by British pioneers of Gibraltarian geology.
Rose was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London (FGS) in 1963, and a Senior Fellow in 2013, having been accredited as a Chartered Geologist (CGeol) in 1991.
Two of his PhD students completed theses on Cenozoic limestones (one for Malta and the other Sicily), and an MPhil student completed a thesis on Cenozoic sediments of northern Iraq.
Military aspects of geology Rose began an association with the military as with geological research at the age of 14. He joined Emanuel School Combined Cadet Force (CCF) as a cadet in September 1954, as soon as he was old enough (and so then expected to do so), winning the annual recruit's prize at the end of the academic year in 1955. He completed his CCF service in December 1959, as the senior cadet (Flight Sergeant) leading the school's Royal Air Force section.
On admission to the University of Oxford in autumn 1960, Rose joined the Oxford University Officers Training Corps as a cadet, gaining a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant (General List, Territorial Army: TA) in 1962. On graduation in 1963, he transferred to Q (Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars) Battery, 299 Field Regiment Royal Artillery (TA), being promoted Lieutenant in 1963 and to the senior subalterns’ post of Gun Position Officer – being selected to march through London, sword reversed, in the State Funeral of the QOOH Honorary Colonel, Sir Winston Churchill, in 1965. On reorganisation of the reserve army in 1967, he transferred to B (Oxford Rifles) Company of the Oxfordshire Battalion, Royal Green Jackets. On further reorganisation in 1969, he transferred to the Engineer Specialist Pool at Central Volunteer Headquarters Royal Engineers (CVHQRE), as a military geologist. In this role he was promoted Captain in 1970, acting Major in 1974 (and substantive Major on achieving the minimum age), acting Lieutenant Colonel in 1978 (and substantive Lieutenant Colonel on achieving the minimum age). He served from 1987 to 1990 as a Colonel, as Commander of the RE Specialist Advisory Team and the ten Specialist Teams RE(V) then administered by CVHQRE to help provide technical expertise necessary to bring the British regular army from peace to war strength. He was awarded the TD (the Long Service Decoration of the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve) in 1974, a 1st clasp in 1980, a 2nd clasp in 1986.