George Bernard Reynolds

George Bernard Reynolds was a British geologist and oil industry executive, born April 5, 1853 in Sussex, England and died February 23, 1925, credited with locating the well that launched Iran's modern oil industry. After attending the Royal Indian Engineering College from 1873, he worked in British India's Public Works Department and State Railways from 1875 to 1897, then in oil wells in the Dutch East Indies, before William Knox D'Arcy hired him in 1901 to lead oil exploration across Persia. Reynolds conducted the geological surveys and directed the drilling operations of that search, and when funding shortages brought orders from London to abandon the effort, he delayed compliance long enough for his crew to strike oil at 1,180 feet on May 26, 1908 at Masjed Soleyman, a discovery that founded the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and Iran's oil industry.