He was appointed to the grade of Geologist in 1883. Shortly afterwards ill-health forced
him to resign from the Survey in 1885, after only 17 years service, aged 37 (Flctt 1937
p. 244).
Dalton was elected to Fellowship of the Geological Society (No. 2907) on 15"' December
1875. His proposers were H.W. Bristow, W. Whitaker, Andrew Ramsey, Robert Etheridge,
all officers of the Geological Survey, together with J. Gwyn Jeffery.
He listed his occupation as a consulting geologist and teacher of geology in the 1891 census
(RG 12/1359 folio 19 obv. page 31 schedule 154). After he had left the Geological Survey
he became a consulting geologist, particularly in the field of petroleum exploration. In this
career he travelled widely including California, South Africa, Burma, Siberia and Japan.
In the Great War of 1914-1918 he was adviser to Sir Boverton Redwood, F.R.S, and
collaborated in producing Redwood's three volume Treatise on Petroleum. This became a
standard work. The third edition of this work appeared in 1913 and contained a 172 page
bibliography by Dalton. He was engaged for the last thirty years of his life in compiling a
huge Bibliography of Petroleum Literature. This passed into the keeping of the Institute of
Petroleum Technologists on his death. His obituary in the Journal of the Institution of
Petroleum Technologists described Dalton as "a great petroleum geologist.. .who was
associated with the early development of many of the oilfields of the world". It considered
his Bibliography, which was given to the Institution, to be "the most complete in existence".
The obituarist mourned his death at the age of 81 which "marks the passing of a great
petroleum geologist, and one who was associated with the early development of many of
the oilfields of the world" (Leaning 1951 pp. 611-612).
Dalton and the Essex Field Club
Dalton donated many rocks, minerals and fossils to the Club when the Stratford Museum
was being set up. At this time he was living in Essex. In the 1891 census he and his wife
were recorded at 2 Victoria Villas, Derby Road, Woodford. He personally entered these
in the Accessions Register. He was elected an honorary member of the Club in 1902.
Dalton travelled extensively within England as a Geological Surveyor and internationally
in his career as a petroleum consultant geologist. This is evidenced at a meeting of the
Essex Field Club on 8th April 1905 when Dalton exhibited some Miocene fossils from
Frankport-on-Main, shells from the shore of the Okhotsk sea on the eastern side of the
island of Sakhalin and shells from the northern part of Lower Burma. He was in Saghalian
just before the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905). The Essex Field Club also possesses
Dalton's catalogue of his own geological collection.
Publications
In addition to his official writings for the Geological Survey, listed in Table 1 above,
Dalton wrote more than thirty articles of a geological nature which appeared in a wide
range of journals from 1875-1912. Most of these are listed in Table 2 overleaf.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 51, September 2006 17