On 4 August 2025, a ‘Blue Plaque’ was unveiled on Astor Hall (Devonport Road) in Plymouth. It marks the life of Ralph Alger Bagnold FRS OBE KL, who was born in Devonport (Plymouth) on 3 April 1896, and was a famous, and highly decorated, desert explorer, geologist and soldier.
After education at Malvern College in Worcestershire, Bagnold attended the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich and, in 1915, was commissioned into the Royal Engineers. He endured three years in the ‘trenches’, was mentioned in despatches (MiD) in 1917 and, in 1919, was awarded the Belgian Order of Leopold.
After the war, Bagnold studied engineering at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, and was awarded an MA. He returned to the army and, with his colleagues, became a pioneer in the use of vehicles for desert exploration, being awarded the Foundation Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1935.
In July 1940, Bagnold founded the Long Range Desert Group, serving in many desert-based campaigns. After the war, he continued his desert research on sand dunes, ripples and sheets – publishing a long list of research papers on desert geomorphology. This research led to several significant awards, including:
- K. Warren Prize of the National Academy of Science in 1969;
- The Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America in 1970;
- The Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1971; and
- The David Linton Award of the British Geomorphological Research Group in 1981.
His most unique honour was the naming of the Bagnold Dune Field in Gale Crater on Mars by NASA, which was explored by the Curosity rover in 2015. This dune field was the first active aeolian dune field explored on another planet.
On a personal level, he married Dorothy on 8 May 1946 in Rottingdean, East Sussex, and his sister, Enid Bagnold, wrote the novel National Velvet in 1935. He died in South-East London on 28 May 1990, having continued publishing science into his nineties.
Authors
Malcolm Hart, Chair, Plymouth Branch of the Devonshire Association, UK
Colin Kilvington, Hon. Secretary, Plymouth Branch of the Devonshire Association, UK
