He graduated from Durham University in 1959 with a degree in geology. Fred became an Assistant Lecturer in geology at Newcastle College of Further Education, then moving to Ealing Technical College in London to lecture in geology. In September 1965 he returned north to become a Lecturer in Engineering Geology at Sheffield College of Technology, now Sheffield Hallam University. He received a Master's degree in Sedimentary Petrology from Durham University in 1968. He began research for his doctorate (part-time) at the University of Sheffield in the same year. On receiving his doctorate, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering, Sheffield Hallam University. There began Fred's prodigious output of academic papers, articles and books. His first paper and first book were both published in 1975, the former on salt subsidence in Cheshire and the latter on site investigation in areas of mining subsidence.  In 1977 he became a Principal Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering and subsequently, in 1981, Deputy Head of the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at Teesside Polytechnic. In 1989 he was offered a Professorship and Head of Department position in the Department of Geology and Applied Geology, University of Natal, South Africa where he remained until he retired in 2001. He was awarded a DSc by the University of Natal. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla (USA) and a Visiting Research Associate at the British Geological Survey.   He won a number of awards – the Coke Medal of the Geological Society, the Holdredge Award of the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists (USA) (twice), the E.B. Burwell, Jr. Award of the Geological Society of America and the University of Natal book prize (the only person to have won this three times). He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, as well as of the Geological Society. Fred will be remembered worldwide for his vast published output, including 17 textbooks, four edited Engineering Geology Special Publications and nearly 250 papers. The range of his research was wide, covering ground instability; mining subsidence; foundation engineering; site investigation; ground treatment; cement, lime and PFA stabilization of clay soils; acid mine drainage; landfills; derelict and contaminated ground; rock durability; groundwater; and geohazards.