From 8-12 August 1914, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, meeting in Australia, descended on Adelaide. The meeting included delegates from a dozen overseas countries, including many from the United Kingdom. Amongst the visiting geologists were Arthur Philemon Coleman (1852–1939) and William Morris Davis (1850–1934), Rollin Thomas Chamberlin (1881–1948) and John Walter Gregory (1864–1932), Albrecht Penck (1858–1945) and Johannes Walthcr (1860–1937), Alexander du Toit (1878–1948) and Hartley Travers Ferrar (1879–1932), George William Lamplugh (1859–1926) and Sydney Hugh Reynolds (1867–1949), as well as the home-based T. W. Edgeworth David (1858–1934) and Ernest Willington Skeats (1875–1953). The proceedings created immense public interest and brought science to the people in a way never before achieved in Australia. That the meeting proceeded at all is a tribute to the Australian Government, the Association, and the conference organisers, as well as the participants, for the First World War had been declared only a few days before the meeting. The interactions between the home population and the delegates, and between delegates, provide an enlightening commentary on the values and standards of our world almost a century ago.

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