(1867-1949), Geologist

William Fraser Hume was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire on the 1st October 1867. He received his early education in Russia and at College Galliard in Lausanne in Switzerland. He then attended the Royal College of Science and Royal College of Mines in the University of London, graduating BSc in c. 1887. He began lecturing at the Royal College of Science in 1890 and received a doctorate (DSc) in 1893.

In 1897 he moved to Egypt to assist with a huge geological survey of the whole country and in 1909 became Director of the entire Geological Survey of Egypt. In 1910 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. During the First World War he advised on water supply to the British Army in Egypt and the Middle East. He served as President of the Royal Geographical Society of Egypt from 1926 to 1940 and President of the Institute of Egypt in 1928.

He retired in 1927 and returned to England to Sussex in c. 1930, he died there on the 23rd February 1949.