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Terence George Miller 1918-2015

Stratigrapher and geographer at Keele and Reading Universities, who became Principal of University College, Salisbury (Rhodesia) and Director of North London Polytechnic.

In 1939, Terence G Miller TD ( or ‘TG’ as he was known to his students), ‘took to soldiering’.  He suspended his degree at Jesus College, Cambridge and finally graduated (First Class) in 1948.  Throughout his life, the army was one of his key interests - in 1967 teaching a final-year option in ‘military geography’.  He was always coy about WWII but was a glider pilot at D-Day and subsequently at Arnhem where he was captured and became a ‘guest of the Third Reich’ for several months.  Earlier in 1940 he was involved in ‘some skulduggery in Norway’.  In an unguarded moment he admitted to ‘visiting’ Glomfjord’ in Arctic Norway (a nitrate factory was attacked in a commando raid).  Latterly, as a Lt Col in the Territorial Army, he advised on terrain trafficability.

The year 1953 was critical.  A medical examination for Shell employment diagnosed an internal issue which required hospitalisation.  He occupied himself by completing his book ‘Geology and Scenery in Britain’ and personally drafting a splendid set of line drawings to illustrate it.  He never joined Shell, since an invitation to interview came from the experimental University College of North Staffordshire (Keele) where, from 1953-1965, he served as stratigrapher in the geology teaching team while researching Palaeozoic bryozoans. 

He meditated on the functioning of the Earth system and inspired his students to think ‘outside the box’, anticipating plate tectonics almost a decade before it became conventional wisdom.  Keele had a profound influence on his cognitive development and he enthusiastically adopted its interdisciplinary ethos, although he was opposed the stranglehold that the founding professors had on governance.

Another turn of fate occurred in 1965 when he became Professor of Geography at Reading University, an outcome not unrelated to Perce Allen, Dean of Science, being a personal friend from post-war Cambridge days. This event shook the British geographical establishment to its core.  ‘TG’ commenced the much-needed rejuvenation of his department and rapidly gained the respect of most of his new colleagues. 

In 1967 a letter, from The Ministry of Defence, requested that he be nominated for the post of Principal at the University College, Salisbury, Rhodesia.  Unsurprisingly, the Smith regime did not appreciate TG’s unflagging support for a multiracial university and he was obliged to resign in 1969.  Initially he returned to Reading as a professor without portfolio, but in 1971 he became Director of the Polytechnic of North London.  A torrid decade ensued with significant student unrest that was influenced by the mistaken belief that their Director was a fascist because of his previous posting.  Ironically he had been branded a communist in Rhodesia!

In 1981 he first retired to Cornwall and later returned to East Anglia where he could more readily access his college and the university libraries.  On 17 January 2015, he relinquished his final battle, for life - peacefully losing consciousness, having just attained his 97th birthday.  Inga Priestman, his wife since 1944, predeceased him in 2012.  He is survived by his three daughters and a son.

Peter Worsley