Michael Davies-Shiel, BSc., FRGS, 1929-2009, was well known throughout Cumbria as an industrial archaeologist and for his popular and inspiring courses and illustrated talks on a wide range of subjects, including the many diverse woodland industries, iron smelting, gunpowder making, alpine flora, potash kilns, the woollen industry and the Vikings in Lakeland.
A geography and geology teacher by profession, he volunteered in 1960 to take part in the New Land use Survey, developing new ways of showing fellside vegetation and mapping most of the then county of Westmorland. Later he pioneered the new subject of environmental studies at his school.
Early retirement allowed him to develop his twin talents of patient, persistent trawling through old records and the ability to relate the documentary evidence to what he saw on the ground in his regular and extensive field work explorations. His meticulous fieldwork records were always accompanied by his own detailed photographs

Michael Davies-Shiel, BSc., FRGS, 1929-2009, was well known throughout Cumbria as an industrial archaeologist and for his popular and inspiring courses and illustrated talks on a wide range of subjects, including the many diverse woodland industries, iron smelting, gunpowder making, alpine flora, potash kilns, the woollen industry and the Vikings in Lakeland.
A geography and geology teacher by profession, he volunteered in 1960 to take part in the New Land use Survey, developing new ways of showing fellside vegetation and mapping most of the then county of Westmorland. Later he pioneered the new subject of environmental studies at his school.
Early retirement allowed him to develop his twin talents of patient, persistent trawling through old records and the ability to relate the documentary evidence to what he saw on the ground in his regular and extensive field work explorations. His meticulous fieldwork records were always accompanied by his own detailed photographs