The Pilkington Gene

Dr Joe McCall is a geologist, living in Gloucestershire, and a Senior Fel9w of the Geological Society of London. He lately became interested in his extraordinary maternal ancestors - his grandfather, Joseph Kidd, born in 1824, was the 17th of a family of 20 in Limerick; he tended the Irish Potato famine and was later Disraeli's physician. Joseph Kidd himself had 15 children, and his second wife, Francis Octavia, was the daughter of Clara Rouse, born in Trinidad as the elder daughter of George Pilkington. Gleaning the amazing story of George's life from family papers and books, Joe departed from his usual writings on geology, meteoritics and planetology, to prepare this short biograph. He has extracted the essence from George Pilkington's writings and other records: the books are difficult to read, being interlaced with biblical quotations. George Pilkington emerges as a man of noble achievement, who did not let three severe misfortunes in his life ever discourage him and above all vigorously opposed slavery in its continuation in the early 19th Century and also discrimination against black settlers in Trinidad, to his cost.