Genealogy & Family History
Sorby of Attercliffe
MS 280
Source: Familie Minorum Gentium. Complied by the Rev. Joseph Hunter
John Sorby, Master Cutler, married Elizabeth, the daughter of Richard Swallow.
Dore House Colliery, owned by the Sorby's, was opened in 1820
Henry Clifton Sorby
Henry Clifton Sorby(1826–1908), geologist and metallurgist, was born on 10 May 1826 at Attercliffe, Sheffield. His father, Henry Sorby, was a partner in the firm of J. & H. Sorby, edge-tool makers. Sorby was educated at a private school in Harrogate and at the collegiate school, Sheffield.
Sorby's early investigations were concerned with agricultural chemistry, but his interests soon turned to geology. After the death of his mother, he purchased a small yacht, the Glimpse, and he would spend time making biological and physical investigations in the estuaries and inland waters of the east of England. He published works dealing with the physical geography of geologic periods, rock denudation and deposition, and the formation of river terraces.
He founded, and was President in 1881, of Firth College, which became the University of Sheffield where the Sorby Centre for Electron Microscopy and and Microanalysis is named after him.
When his work 'On the Microscopical Structure of Crystals' was published, it was met with ridicule by some, and with scepticism by others. However, Mr. Sorby, lived to find Microscopical Petrography recognised all the world over as one of the most important branches of geological science, and to be himself hailed by geologists, as the pioneer in this new field of scientific research.
Sorby died in 1908 at the age of 82 and was buried in Ecclesall churchyard, Sheffield. In his will he left a considerable sum to Sheffield University to endow a professorship in geology. He also endowed a fellowship to promote original research, such as he had devoted his whole life to studying.
The Sorby Natural History was formed in 1918 as the Sorby Scientific Society, in honour of Henry Clifton Sorby.
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