Dalton's Geological Legacy
It is now nearly 80 years since Dalton's death in 1929 and it may be timely to briefly
consider his geological legacy. Over a period of more than 50 years he published a
massive corpus of about 50 geological books, papers and maps from 1875-1929. Three
of his works, relating to Aldborough (1886). the East Anglian Crags (1900) and Walton
(1902) and are included in the bibliography of the Geological Conservation Review
Series volume entitled British Tertiary Stratigraphy (1999) by B. Daley and P. Balson.
A further three publications are listed in the GCR volume on the Quaternary of the
Thames (1994) by David Bridgland. These are his geological memoir on Colchester
(1880), Upminster brickyard (1890) and post-glacial beds in Mersea (1908). Accordingly
at least six of his papers are still of significance.
Character, Death and Wealth
Dalton's only child noted of her father's short sightedness "He could read to tire thousandth
of an inch on his maps, but could not read a clock-face a couple of yards off. This
compelled the life-long wearing of spectacles out of doors". Dalton enjoyed the company
of young people and took groups of them on geological field trips and to places of
interest. Additionally he threw his house open to Belgian refugees during the Great War
of 1914-1918.
Dalton could be quite scathing of other people's opinions. In his correspondence on
H.W. Monckton's Boulder Clay in Essex (Dalton 1891 p.133) he uses the word
"absurdity" and the phrase "a mind prejudiced". Additionally Dalton summarily dismisses
Monckton's supporting references as follows "Of the authors quoted, no one who knows
anything of the first values his contributions to the literature of the subject, and I wholly
dissent from the conclusions drawn from the facts recorded by the others".
W. H. Dalton drafted his will on 23rd August 1929. He died of heart failure, less than a
month later, on 18"' September 1929 aged 81, at his home, 85 Hayter Road, Brixton
Hill, Surrey. His occupation on his death certificate was given as "Geologist". His spinster
sister Emily Dalton was present at his death. She was earlier living with her brother in
the 1870s and 1880s.. His effects were valued at £7965 for probate which was granted
on 5th November 1929 to his son-in-law and daughter, Aubrey Leaning and Frances
Leaning. At the time of his death he owned his leasehold home and property at Pitsea,
Essex and Minster, Kent. He bequeathed the Pitsea and Minster properties to his grandson
Frank Sidney Leaning. He gave his third wife, Emily Gertrude Dalton, a life interest in
his Brixton house and its contents. On her death this property and its contents passed to
his only child, by his first wife, Frances Edith Leaning.
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Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 51, September 2006