Edward Derbyshire obituary

My grandfather Edward Derbyshire, who has died aged 91, was an influential geoscientist. His research encompassed everything from landslides and glaciers to desertification and climate change.

For much of his career he was based at what is now Keele University, where he began as a geography lecturer and rose to be professor of geomorphology, before leaving to become head of the geography department at the University of Leicester until his retirement in 1990.

Edward was internationally recognised for his research with Chinese scientists into landslides in the loess landscapes of western China, work for which he later earned the Varnes Medal from the International Consortium on Landslides in 2007. Previously at Keele he had received the Back Award from the Royal Geographical Society for his contributions to glaciology and research in China.

Over the years he had more than 200 scientific articles published , and wrote, co-edited or edited a number of books, including Geomorphological Processes: Studies in Physical Geography (1979) and Landslides in the Thick Loess Terrain of North West China (2000) .

Born in Liverpool to Katie (nee Wall), a maid, and Edward, a dock labourer, Edward attended Alleyne’s grammar school in Stone, Staffordshire, before going on to study English literature and geography at the University College of North Staffordshire, now Keele University. While there he set up the men’s and women’s table tennis teams, and it was also at at UCNS that he met Maryon Lloyd; they married in 1956 and had three sons, Edmund, Edward and Dominic.

After national service in the army’s educational corps, some of which he spent in Fontainebleau, France, Edward gained an MSc at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, before being awarded a PhD from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, for a thesis on the geomorphology and climate of western Tasmania.

Afterwards he accepted a lectureship in the department of geography at Keele in 1967, becoming a senior lecturer in 1970, reader in geography in 1974 and professor of geomorphology in 1985 before moving on to Leicester.

Edward was a force of nature, never without a twinkle in his eye, and neither retirement nor subsequent illness dimmed his work ethic. After leaving the University of Leicester he became an emeritus professor at Royal Holloway, University of London and continued to contribute to scientific committees, culminating in his appointment as chair of the science committee of the 2008 United Nations International Year of Planet Earth.

In 2012 an international conference celebrated Edward’s legacy, and in the same year he received the James M Harrison Award and Medal for Outstanding Achievement from the International Union of Geological Sciences.

He is survived by Maryon, their sons and nine grandchildren.