Bernard John Smith
Bernard John Smith (21 March 1951 – 31 October 2012) was an English geomorphologist and physical geographer known for his work on desert landscapes and the weathering of building stones.
Born in the village of Beer, Dorset, he moved with his family to London and studied Geography at the University of Reading, graduating in 1971. He stayed on at Reading to complete a PhD in 1975, researching desert geomorphology and process studies in Tunisia. After a stint teaching in Nigeria at Ahmadu Bello University, he returned to the UK and joined Queen’s University Belfast in 1979. There he advanced from lecturer to Senior Lecturer, then Reader, and in 1998 he became Professor of Tropical Geomorphology. He retired in 2011 due to illness and passed away in Belfast in 2012.
Smith’s early research focused on desert environments and the formation of desert dust and loess. He then turned his attention to building stone decay, exploring how pollution and weathering affect stone in cities and heritage sites. He helped establish the Weathering Research Group at Queen’s in the early 1990s, collaborating with conservation architects and heritage professionals across the UK and Europe. He also examined how climate change could impact stone-built heritage.
As a mentor, he supervised many PhD students and served on the British Society for Geomorphology’s executive committee, becoming its chair in 2011. A colleague, Patricia Warke, described his work as rooted in his love of hot deserts and tropical landscapes and his interest in processes that shape them, linking landscape studies with the weathering of built environments.
He was married to Dorothy Rossiter in 1974, and they had two children.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:47 (CET).