1.
Great Queen Street
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Great Queen Street is a street in the West End of central London in England. It is a continuation of Long Acre from Drury Lane to Kingsway and it runs from 1 to 44 along the north side, east to west, and 45 to about 80 along the south side, west to east. The street straddles and connects the Covent Garden and Holborn districts and is in the London Borough of Camden, the street was called Queen Street from around 1605–9, and Great Queen Street from around 1670. In 1646 William Newton was given permission to build fourteen large houses, each with a forty-foot frontage, the regular design of the houses proved influential. According to John Summerson they laid down the canon which put an end to gabled individualism, roughly half of the south side is occupied by Freemasons Hall, the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England. The first English Grand Lodge was founded in 1717, which explains the dates on the top of the current building and their first buildings on this site were replaced in 1860 by the architect Frederick Pepys Cockerell. However, this is the third Freemasons Hall, which was built by international subscriptions in 1927–33 as a Masonic Peace Memorial after the Great War. It is a grade II listed building, and the only Art Deco building in London that is unaltered, there are 29 meeting rooms and the 1,000 seat Grand Temple, which with the Library and Museum are open to the public with hourly guided tours. The four Masonic Charities are also located in Freemasons Hall, in 1775 the Freemasons Tavern stood at 61–65, now the hotel and New Connaught Rooms. There are conflicting stories about the founding in 1863 of the Football Association to set down the rules of the game. The existing pub The Freemasons Arms on Long Acre is sometimes said to be the site of this event, but other sources say it was the Freemason’s Tavern where the New Connaught Rooms now stand. There is a pub called The Prince of Wales at 45 Great Queen Street, the north side of the road is also partly occupied by Masonic regalia shops, Masonic charities and administrative offices. At numbers 19–21 is the premises of the regalia manufacturer Toye, Kenning & Spencer, at 23 is another shop where Masonic regalia is sold. At 30–31 is the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys, at 72 is the Kingsway Hall Hotel. At 31 Great Queen Street lived James Basire, a member of the Society of Antiquaries who took on William Blake as an apprentice in 1772, between 1837 and 1840, the painter Richard Dadd lived in Great Queen Street while studying at the Royal Academy. Shanks and Co. ran their well-known coachbuilding business at 70–71 Great Queen Street from the 1850s, the business moved out of Great Queen Street around 1905. The Shanks coachworks was located in New Yard, this land was sold to the Freemasons around 1920 to build the Freemasons Hall, from 1882 to 1959 the Novelty Theatre was on Great Queen Street. At 56–58 lived James Boswell, lawyer, diarist and author, opposite Freemasons Hall was one of the feature sites for the Camden bench when it was first introduced
2.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
3.
WC postcode area
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The WC postcode area, also known as the London WC postcode area, is a group of postcode districts in central London, England. It includes parts of the London Borough of Camden, City of Westminster, London Borough of Islington, the area covered is of very high density development. The current postcode districts are relatively recent, divisions WC1 and WC2 districts established only in 1917. Where the districts are used for other than the sorting of mail, such as use as a geographic reference and on street signs. Both the WC1 and WC2 postcode districts are part of the London post town, there are no dependent localities used in the postcode districts. The numbered districts were created in 1917, before then they had been included in the WC postal district. There has been no significant recoding of the area from 1990 to 2007. There are Post Office branches in the WC1 postcode district at Grays Inn, High Holborn, Marchmont Street and Russell Square, the Western Central District Office was located on New Oxford Street, which was a stop on the London Post Office Railway. Deliveries for WC1 and WC2 now come from Mount Pleasant Mail Centre in Farringdon Road
4.
Burlington House
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Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in London. It was originally a private Palladian mansion, and was expanded in the century after being purchased by the British government. The house was one of the earliest of a number of large private residences built on the north side of Piccadilly, previously a country lane. The first version was begun by Sir John Denham about 1664 and it was a red-brick double-pile hip-roofed mansion with a recessed centre, typical of the style of the time, or perhaps even a little old fashioned. In 1704 the house passed to the ten-year-old Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, who was to become the patron of the Palladian movement in England. The colonnade separated the house from increasingly urbanized Piccadilly with a cour dhonneur, inside, Baroque decorative paintings in the entrance hall and staircase by Sebastiano Ricci and Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini resulted in some of the richest interiors in London. In between his two Grand Tours of Italy young Lord Burlingtons taste was transformed by the publication of Giacomo Leonis Palladio. In 1717 or 1718, Colen Campbell was appointed to replace Gibbs, the ground floor became a rusticated basement, which supported a monumental piano nobile of nine bays. This had no centrepiece, but was highlighted by venetian windows in the end bays. Other alterations included a monumental screening gateway to Piccadilly and the reconstruction of most of the principal interiors, with typical Palladian features such as rich coved ceilings. The Saloon, constructed immediately after William Kents return from Rome in December 1719, has survived in the most intact condition and its plaster putti above the pedimented doorcases were probably by Giovanni Battista Guelfi. Lord Burlington transferred his energies to Chiswick House after 1722. On Burlingtons death in 1753, Burlington House passed to the Dukes of Devonshire, the 4th Dukes younger son Lord George Cavendish and a Devonshire in-law, the 3rd Duke of Portland, each used the house for at least two separate spells. Portland had some of the interiors altered by John Carr in the 1770s. Eventually Lord George, who was a man in his own right due to a marriage to an heiress. Like Carrs work Wares was sympathetic with the Palladian style of the house, providing an example of the Kent Revival. In 1819 the Burlington Arcade was built along the part of the grounds. In 1854, Burlington House was sold to the British government for £140,000 and this plan, however, was abandoned in the face of strong opposition and in 1857 Burlington House was occupied by the Royal Society, the Linnean Society and the Chemical Society
5.
Piccadilly
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Piccadilly is a road in the City of Westminster, London to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earls Court, Heathrow Airport, St Jamess is to the south of the eastern section, while the western section is built up only on the northern side. At just under 1 mile in length, Piccadilly is one of the widest and straightest streets in central London, Piccadilly has been a main road since at least medieval times, and in the middle ages was known as the road to Reading or the way from Colnbrook. Around 1611 or 1612, a Robert Baker acquired land in the area, shortly after purchasing the land, he enclosed it and erected several dwellings, including his home, Pikadilly Hall. Some of the most notable homes in London were built on the northern side of the street during this period, including Clarendon House. Berkeley House, constructed around the time as Clarendon House, was destroyed by a fire in 1733 and rebuilt as Devonshire House in 1737 by William Cavendish. It was later used as the headquarters for the Whig party. Burlington House has since been home to several noted societies, including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Geological Society of London, several members of the Rothschild family had mansions at the western end of the street. St Jamess Church was consecrated in 1684 and the area became St James Parish. The Old White Horse Cellar, at No,155, was one of the most famous coaching inns in England by the late-18th century, by which time the street had become a favourable location for booksellers. The Bath Hotel emerged around 1790, and Walsingham House was built in 1887, both the Bath and the Walsingham were purchased and demolished when the prestigious Ritz Hotel was built on the site in 1906. Piccadilly Circus station, at the east end of the street, was designed by Charles Holden and it was the first underground station to have no above-ground premises, the station is only accessible by subways from street level. The clothing store Simpsons was established at 203 -206 Piccadilly by Alec Simpson in 1936, during the 20th century, Piccadilly became known as a place to acquire heroin, and was notorious in the 1960s as the centre of Londons illegal drug trade. Today, Piccadilly is regarded as one of Londons principal shopping streets and its landmarks include the Ritz, Park Lane, Athenaeum and Intercontinental hotels, Fortnum & Mason, the Royal Academy, the RAF Club, Hatchards, the Embassy of Japan and the High Commission of Malta. Piccadilly has inspired works of fiction, including Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest. It is one of a group of squares on the London Monopoly board, the street has been part of a main road for centuries although there is no evidence that it was part of a Roman Road, unlike Oxford Street further north. In the Middle Ages it was known as the road to Reading or the way from Colnbrook, during the Tudor period, relatively settled conditions made expansion beyond Londons city walls a safer venture. Property speculation became an enterprise and developments grew so rapidly that the threat of disease
6.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
7.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
8.
Charitable organization
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A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization. It differs from types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals as well as social well-being. The legal definition of charitable organization varies according to the country, the regulation, tax treatment, and the way in which charity law affects charitable organizations also varies. Financial figures are important indicators to assess the sustainability of a charity. This information can impact a charitys reputation with donors and societies, and thus, Charitable organizations often depend partly on donations from for-profit-organizations. Such donations to charitable organizations represent a form of corporate philanthropy. Until the mid-18th century, charity was mainly distributed through parish relief, churches, almshouses, Charities were also responsible for education, health, housing and even prisons. It was in the Enlightenment era that charitable and philanthropic activity among voluntary associations, societies, gentlemans clubs, and mutual associations began to flourish in England and the upper-classes increasingly adopted a philanthropic attitude toward the disadvantaged. This new social activism was channeled into the establishment of charitable organizations and this emerging upper-class fashion for benevolence resulted in the incorporation of the first charitable organizations. This was the first such charity in the world and served as the precedent for incorporated associational charities everywhere. Jonas Hanway, another notable philanthropist of the era established The Marine Society in 1756 as the first seafarers charity, by 1763, the Society had recruited over 10,000 men and it was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1772. Hanway was also instrumental in establishing the Magdalen Hospital to rehabilitate prostitutes and these organizations were funded by subscription and run as voluntary associations. Charities also began to adopt campaigning roles, where they would champion a cause, the process was however a lengthy one being finally concluded when Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962. This period also saw growing philosophical debate between those who championed state intervention and those who believed that private charities should provide welfare, thomas Malthus, the political economist, criticized poor relief for paupers on economic and moral grounds and proposed leaving charity entirely to the private sector. His views were influential and informed the Victorian laissez-faire attitude toward state intervention for the poor. During the 19th century, a profusion of charitable organizations were set up to alleviate the conditions of the working class in the slums. The Labourers Friend Society, chaired by Lord Shaftesbury in the United Kingdom in 1830, was set up to working class conditions. This included the promotion of allotment of land to labourers for cottage husbandry that later became the allotment movement and this was one of the first housing associations, a philanthropic endeavour that flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century brought about by the growth of the middle class
9.
Freemasons' Tavern
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The Freemasons Tavern was established in 1775 at 61-65 Great Queen Street. It served as a place for a variety of notable organisations from the eighteenth century until it was demolished to make way for the Connaught Hotel in 1909. In 1769, the Grand Lodge decided to build a Central Hall, a building was purchased in Great Queen Street in 1775 and Thomas Sandby was tasked with building a hall in the garden. The original house became the tavern with a second house providing office space for the Freemasons, the hall was not only used for Masonic purposes, but also became an important venue in London for a variety of meetings and concerts. Organisations using the included, African Institution Anti-Slavery Society British
10.
Covent Garden
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Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martins Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House. The area was settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by Westminster Abbey for use as arable land, referred to as the garden of the Abbey and Convent, and later the Covent Garden, it was seized by Henry VIII and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St Pauls, the design of the square was new to London and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for new estates as London grew. By 1654 a small open-air fruit-and-vegetable market had developed on the side of the fashionable square. Gradually, both the market and the area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses. By the 18th century it had become a well-known red-light district, an Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowlers neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The market grew and further buildings were added, the Floral Hall, Charter Market, by the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles south-west at Nine Elms. With the postcode WC2, Covent Garden falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, the area has been served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station since 1907, the journey from Leicester Square, at 300 yards, is the shortest in London. What would become the Strand on the boundary of the future Covent Garden was used during the Roman period as part of a route to Silchester. Excavations in 2006 at St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a late Roman grave and these revealed Covent Garden as the centre of a trading town called Lundenwic, developed around 600 AD, which stretched from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. Alfred the Great gradually shifted the settlement into the old Roman town of Londinium from around 886 AD onwards, leaving no mark of the old town, a document from 1200 AD mentions a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St Peter, Westminster. A later document, dated between 1250 and 1283, refers to the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster. By the 13th century this had become a 40-acre quadrangle of mixed orchard, meadow, pasture and arable land and this is how it was recorded from then on. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII took the land belonging to Westminster Abbey for himself and his son, Edward VI, granted it to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, in 1552. The Russell family, who in 1694 were advanced in their peerage from Earl to Duke of Bedford, held the land until 1918
11.
William Babington (physician)
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William Babington FRS FGS was an Anglo-Irish physician and mineralogist. William Babington was born in Portglenone, near Coleraine, Antrim and he was the son of Rev. Humphrey Babington, the great-great-grandson of Brutus Babington, and his wife Anne. Apprenticed to a practitioner at Londonderry, and afterwards completed his education at Guys Hospital, London. In 1777 he was assistant surgeon to Haslar Hospital. He then obtained the position of apothecary to Guys Hospital, and he resigned the post of apothecary, and, having obtained the necessary degree of MD from the University of Aberdeen in 1795, was elected physician to Guys Hospital. Babington was physician to Guys Hospital from 1795 to 1811 and he was a founder member of the Geological Society of London and served as president from 1822 to 1824. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1805 and he was the curator for the enormous mineral collection of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. When Bute died in 1792, Babington bought the collection, the mineral Babingtonite is named after him. William and Martha Elizabeth Babington were married before 1794, and had four sons, Babington died on 29 April 1833 and was buried at St. Mary Aldermanbury in London. He left a son, Benjamin Guy Babington, also physician to Guys Hospital, and a daughter, Martha, a statue of Babington by William Behnes is in St Pauls Cathedral in London. Anthony Babington, the Irish politician was a direct descendant, a Systematic Arrangement of Minerals, founded on the joint consideration of their chemical, physical and external characters, reduced to the form of tables. A New System of Mineralogy, in the form of a Catalogue, the Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Biographical Illustrations of St. Pauls Cathedral, dublin, M. H. Gill & son. Wikisource Babingtonite Kings College London Archive Holdings for Babington
12.
James Parkinson
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James Parkinson FGS was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist, and political activist. James Parkinson was born in Shoreditch, London, England and he was the son of John Parkinson, an apothecary and surgeon practising in Hoxton Square in London. He was the oldest of three siblings, which included his brother William and his sister Mary Sedgewood, in 1784 Parkinson was approved by the City of London Corporation as a surgeon. On 21 May 1783, he married Mary Dale, with whom he subsequently had eight children, soon after he was married, Parkinson succeeded his father in his practice in 1 Hoxton Square. He believed that any worthwhile surgeon should know shorthand, at which he was adept, in addition to his flourishing medical practice, Parkinson had an avid interest in geology and palaeontology, as well as the politics of the day. Parkinson was an advocate for the under-privileged, and an outspoken critic of the Pitt government. His early career was marred by his being involved in a variety of social and revolutionary causes and he published nearly twenty political pamphlets in the post-French Revolution period, while Britain was in political chaos. Writing under his own name and his pseudonym Old Hubert, he called for social reforms. Parkinson called for representation of the people in the House of Commons, the institution of annual parliaments and he was a member of several secret political societies, including the London Corresponding Society and the Society of Constitutional Information. In 1794 his membership in the led to his being examined under oath before William Pitt. He refused to testify regarding his part in the popgun plot, the plan was to use a poisoned dart fired from a pop-gun to bring the kings reign to a premature conclusion. No charges were brought against Parkinson but several of his friends languished in prison for many months before being acquitted. Parkinson turned away from his tumultuous career, and between 1799 and 1807 published several medical works, including a work on gout in 1805. He was also responsible for early writings on ruptured appendix in English medical literature, Parkinson was also interested in improving the general health and well-being of the population. He wrote several medical doctrines that exposed a similar zeal for the health and he was a crusader for legal protection for the mentally ill, as well as their doctors and families. In 1812 Parkinson assisted his son with the first described case of appendicitis in English, Parkinson was the first person to systematically describe six individuals with symptoms of the disease that bears his name. In his An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, he reported on three of his own patients and three persons who he saw in the street and he referred to the disease that would later bear his name as paralysis agitans, or shaking palsy. He distinguished between resting tremors and the tremors with motion, jean-Martin Charcot coined the term Parkinsons disease some 60 years later
13.
Humphry Davy
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He also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Berzelius called Davys 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry and he was a Baronet, President of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal Irish Academy, and Fellow of the Geological Society. He also invented the Davy Lamp and an early form of incandescent light bulb. Davy was born in Penzance in Cornwall in England on 17 December 1778 and his family moved to Varfell, near Ludgvan, when he was nine, and in term-time Davy boarded with John Tonkin, his mothers godfather. Davy said, I consider it fortunate I was left much to myself as a child, after Davys father died in 1794, Tonkin apprenticed him to John Bingham Borlase, a surgeon with a practice in Penzance. Davys indenture is dated 10 February 1795, in the apothecarys dispensary, Davy became a chemist, and a garret in Tonkins house was where he conducted his earliest chemical experiments. Davys friends said, This boy Humphry is incorrigible and he will blow us all into the air. His elder sister complained of the ravages made on her dresses by corrosive substances, John Ayrton Paris remarked that poetry written by the young Davy bear the stamp of lofty genius. Davys first preserved poem entitled The Sons of Genius is dated 1795, other poems written in the following years, especially On the Mounts Bay and St Michaels Mount, are descriptive verses, showing sensibility but no true poetic imagination. Three of Davys paintings from around 1796 have been donated to the Penlee House museum at Penzance, one is of the view from above Gulval showing the church, Mounts Bay and the Mount, while the other two depict Loch Lomond in Scotland. While writing verses at the age of 17 in honour of his first love, he was discussing the question of the materiality of heat with his Quaker friend. Dunkin remarked, I tell thee what, Humphry, thou art the most quibbling hand at a dispute I ever met with in my life and it was a crude form of analogous experiment exhibited by Davy in the lecture-room of the Royal Institution that elicited considerable attention. As professor at the Royal Institution, Davy repeated many of the experiments he learned from his friend and mentor. Davies Giddy met Davy in Penzance carelessly swinging on the half-gate of Dr Borlases house and this led to an introduction to Dr Edwards, who lived at Hayle Copper House. Edwards was a lecturer in chemistry in the school of St. Bartholomews Hospital, galvanic corrosion was not understood at that time, but the phenomenon prepared Davys mind for subsequent experiments on ships copper sheathing. Gregory Watt, son of James Watt, visited Penzance for his healths sake, Davy was acquainted with the Wedgwood family, who spent a winter at Penzance. Thomas Beddoes and John Hailstone were engaged in a controversy on the rival merits of the Plutonian. They travelled together to examine the Cornish coast accompanied by Davies Gilbert, Beddoes, who had established at Bristol a Pneumatic Institution, needed an assistant to superintend the laboratory
14.
George Bellas Greenough
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George Bellas Greenough FRS FGS was a pioneering English geologist. He is best known as a synthesizer of geology rather than as an original researcher and he compiled a geological map of England and Wales in 1819, shortly after Smiths 1815 map, and in the last year of his life, produced the first geological map of British India. Contemporary geologists were critical of his inability to see the value of fossils and his mother was the only daughter of the apothecary Thomas Greenough, whose very successful business was located on Ludgate Hill near to St Pauls. A younger brother died in infancy and his mother followed only a few months later. His grandfather sent him to Mr Cottons school at Salthill near Slough and he stayed there only one year, suggesting he was perhaps too delicate a child for the robust life at the boarding schools of the day. In September 1789 he entered Dr Thompsons school at Kensington where he studied for the six years. Whilst he was at school he took the name Greenough at the request of his grandfather and he left school in 1795 and went up to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge to study law for three years, but he did not take a degree. In September 1798, he went to the University of Göttingen to continue his studies, thinking that the lectures would be in Latin. In order to improve his language skills Greenough attended the lectures of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach on natural history, at Göttingen Samuel Coleridge was one of his closer friends. A few years later, Greenough was instrumental in securing a government post for Coleridge during his period in Malta. In 1799, Greenough made at least two tours of the Harz, one in the Easter vacation with Clement Carlyon and Charles and Frederic Parry, and these tours were mainly to collect minerals, but he also studied geological collections in the towns he visited. In 1801, Greenough returned to England and his interest in geology deepened when he toured England with Carlyon, later he attended Davys lectures at the Royal Institution in London. The following year he travelled to France and Italy and noted what I saw of geology on my way and he went on a geological tour of Scotland with James Skene in 1805, and of Ireland with Davy in 1806. On the Ireland tour he made a study of social conditions which aroused a deep interest in political questions. 1807 was a significant year for Greenough and he was elected member of parliament for the borough of Gatton, continuing to hold this seat until 1812, although Hansard does not record he made any contributions to the House. His interest in science in general, and geology in particular, increased, he joined a number of eminent scientific and cultural societies and he was elected fellow of the Royal Society. He also became associated with a group of mineralogists to which Davy referred in a letter to William Pepys, dated 13 November 1807 and this club rapidly developed into a learned society devoted to geology and Greenough became the chief founder with others of the Geological Society of London. He was the first chairman of that Society, and in 1811, in this capacity he served on two subsequent occasions, and did much to promote the advancement of geology
15.
Arthur Aikin
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Arthur Aikin, FLS, FGS was an English chemist, mineralogist and scientific writer. Was a founding member of the Chemical Society and he first became its Treasurer in 1841, and later became the Societys second President. He was born at Warrington, Lancashire into a literary family of prominent Unitarians. The best known of these was his aunt, Anna Letitia Barbauld. His father, Dr John Aikin, was a doctor, historian. His grandfather, also called John, was a Unitarian scholar and theological tutor and his sister Lucy was a historical writer. Their brother Charles was adopted by their famous aunt and brought up as their cousin, Arthur Aikin studied chemistry under Joseph Priestley in the New College at Hackney, and gave attention to the practical applications of the science. In early life he was a Unitarian minister for a short time, Aikin lectured on chemistry at Guys Hospital for thirty-two years. He became the President of the British Mineralogical Society in 1801 for five years up until 1806 when the Society merged with the Askesian Society, from 1803 to 1808 he was editor of the Annual Review. In 1805 Aiken also became a Proprietor of the London Institution and he was one of the founders of the Geological Society of London in 1807 and was its honorary secretary in 1812–1817. He also gave lectures in 1813 and 1814 and he contributed papers on the Wrekin and the Shropshire coalfield, among others, to the transactions of that society. His Manual of Mineralogy was published in 1814, later he became the paid Secretary of the Society of Arts and later was elected as a Fellow. He was founder of the Chemical Society of London in 1841, being its first Treasurer and and his writing and journalism were useful for publicising foreign scientific news to the wider British public. He was also a member of the Linnean Society and in 1820 joined the Institution of Civil Engineers and he was highly esteemed as a man of sound judgement and wide knowledge. Aikin never married, and died at Hoxton in London in 1854, for Reess Cyclopædia he wrote articles about Chemistry, Geology and Mineralogy, but the topics are not known. Works written by or about Arthur Aikin at Wikisource Media related to Arthur Aikin at Wikimedia Commons
16.
William Allen (Quaker)
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William Allen FRS FLS FGS was an English scientist and philanthropist who opposed slavery and engaged in schemes of social and penal improvement in early nineteenth-century England. William Allen was the eldest son of devout Quakers Job and Margaret Allen and they were a well-to-do family, Job earning his wealth as a silk manufacturer. As a young man, in the 1790s, William Allen became interested in science and he attended meetings of various scientific societies, including lectures at St. Thomass Hospital and Guys Hospital, becoming a member of The Chemical Society of the latter establishment. In the first year of the new century, William Allens father died, and this left William free to grow his own business in the field of pharmacy, gradually becoming independent and establishing his own business. In 1802 he was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society, William Allen was known in commerce for his pharmaceutical company Plough Court. The company was acquired in 1958 by Glaxo Laboratories, who retained Allen, in 1841 William Allen co-founded The Pharmaceutical Society, which later became The Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Allens involvement with the Plough Court Pharmacy began in the 1790s when he began working there for Samuel Mildred, Allen strengthened the companys links with medical institutions, particularly Guys Hospital where he was elected to its Physical Society. Meanwhile, using Plough Court for meetings, he co-founded the Askesian Society, there new ideas for research and experimentation could be discussed with others such as Luke Howard, Joseph Fox, William Hasledine Pepys, William Babington, and the surgeon Astley Cooper. In 1797 Allen invited Luke Howard to formally collaborate with him at the Plough Court Pharmacy, a second laboratory was opened for the development of new chemicals, a few miles away in Plaistow. William Allens philanthropic work was allied to his religious revivalist beliefs. As the eighteenth century drew to a close, his concerns about the effects of a local famine, later his interest in agricultural experiments was also aimed improving the nutrition and diet of ordinary people susceptible to food shortages. To the people of the time the known colonies were in the Americas so the area became known as America. This identity remains in the street names and peoples memories of the cottages in what is now America Lane. William Allens other philanthropic interest was education and he became greatly influenced by the ideas of Joseph Lancaster, who invented the monitorial system that bears his name. It was a way of educating large numbers, where one teacher supervises several senior pupils who in turn instruct many junior ones. In 1810 William Allen became treasurer of the Society, whose aim was to open schools in England. It was renamed the British and Foreign School Society in 1814, in 1824 Allen founded the Newington Academy for Girls, also known as the Newington College for Girls, a Quaker school. Quaker views on women had from the beginning tended towards equality, with women allowed to minister and his school offered a wide range of subjects on a plan in degree differing from any hitherto adopted, according to the prospectus
17.
Richard Phillips (chemist)
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Richard Phillips FRS FRSE FCS FGS, was a distinguished British chemist and became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1822. Born in Lombard Street, London on 21 November 1778, he was the son of James Phillips and he trained in London, receiving his education as a chemist under George Fordyce and William Allen. In 1796, he and his brother William Phillips, together with William Allen and Luke Howard and he then went on to be founder member of the Geological Society after the Askesian Society disbanded in 1807. A talented chemist, he lectured in chemistry at Royal London Hospital from 1817 and was employed as a professor at Royal Military College in 1818, around this time, he became an editor at Annals of Philosophy and later joint-editor at Philosophical Magazine, publishing papers in both. He was appointed chemist and curator to the Museum of Economic Geology, at Charing Cross in 1839, Richard Phillips married Ann Rickman on 14 April 1807. He died on 11 May 1851 at 2 Champion Place, Camberwell and was buried in Norwood Cemetery and he was one of the founding members of the Chemical Society in 1841 and became its president in 1849, holding the position until his death. He was also prominent in the British Association, Phillips was a Quaker and a friend of Michael Faraday. His paternal grandfather was William Phillips, husband of Catherine Payton Phillips, a Translation of the Pharmacopoeia of the Royal College of Physicians, of London,1824, with Notes and Illustrations. Phillips, London 1824 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf Translation of the Pharmacopoeia of the Royal College of Physicians of London 1836. Ed. Highley, London 1841 Digital edition by the University, Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Phillips, William. ODNB article by Frank A. J. L. James, ‘Phillips, Richard ’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press,2004, online edn, May 2006 accessed 27 Sept 2010
18.
William Phillips (geologist)
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William Phillips FGS FRS was an English mineralogist and geologist. Phillips was the son of James Phillips, printer and bookseller in London and he became interested in mineralogy and geology, and was one of the founders of the Geological Society of London. His Outlines of Mineralogy and Geology and Elementary Introduction to the Knowledge of Mineralogy became standard textbooks and this book had a major influence on the development of geology in Britain. In this work Phillips reprinted his description of the cliffs of Dover and other parts of East Kent. Phillips was a member of the Religious Society of Friends and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1827. In 1796 he and his brother Richard Phillips, together with William Allen and Luke Howard, the zeolite mineral phillipsite is named for him. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Phillips
19.
George IV of the United Kingdom
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George IV was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover following the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten years later. From 1811 until his accession, he served as Prince Regent during his fathers mental illness. George IV led an extravagant lifestyle that contributed to the fashions of the Regency era and he was a patron of new forms of leisure, style and taste. He commissioned John Nash to build the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and remodel Buckingham Palace and he even forbade Caroline to attend his coronation and asked the government to introduce the unpopular Pains and Penalties Bill in a desperate, unsuccessful attempt to divorce her. For most of Georges regency and reign, Lord Liverpool controlled the government as Prime Minister and his ministers found his behaviour selfish, unreliable and irresponsible. At all times he was much under the influence of favourites, taxpayers were angry at his wasteful spending at a time when Britons were fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. He did not provide leadership in time of crisis, nor act as a role model for his people. Liverpools government presided over Britains ultimate victory, negotiated the peace settlement, after Liverpools retirement, George was forced to accept Catholic emancipation despite opposing it. His only child, Princess Charlotte, died before him in 1817 and so he was succeeded by his younger brother, George was born at St Jamess Palace, London, on 12 August 1762, the first child of King George III of the United Kingdom and Queen Charlotte. As the eldest son of a British sovereign, he automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay at birth, he was created Prince of Wales, on 18 September of the same year, he was baptised by Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury. His godparents were the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Duke of Cumberland, George was a talented student, and quickly learned to speak French, German and Italian, in addition to his native English. He was a witty conversationalist, drunk or sober, and showed good, the Prince of Wales turned 21 in 1783, and obtained a grant of £60,000 from Parliament and an annual income of £50,000 from his father. It was far too little for his needs – the stables alone cost £31,000 a year and he then established his residence in Carlton House, where he lived a profligate life. Animosity developed between the prince and his father, who desired more frugal behaviour on the part of the heir apparent, the King, a political conservative, was also alienated by the princes adherence to Charles James Fox and other radically inclined politicians. Soon after he reached the age of 21, the prince became infatuated with Maria Fitzherbert and she was a commoner, six years his elder, twice widowed, and a Roman Catholic. Despite her complete unsuitability, the prince was determined to marry her, nevertheless, the couple went through a marriage ceremony on 15 December 1785 at her house in Park Street, Mayfair. Legally the union was void, as the Kings consent was not granted, however, Fitzherbert believed that she was the princes canonical and true wife, holding the law of the Church to be superior to the law of the State. For political reasons, the union remained secret and Fitzherbert promised not to reveal it, the prince was plunged into debt by his exorbitant lifestyle
20.
Richard Fortey
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Richard Alan Fortey FRS FRSL is a British palaeontologist, natural historian, writer and television presenter. He served as President of the Geological Society of London for its year of 2007. Fortey is married and has four children, Fortey was educated at Ealing Grammar School for Boys and Kings College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences, specialising in geology. He received a PhD and DSc from the University of Cambridge, Fortey has had a long career as a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Fortey’s research interests include, above all, trilobites, at the age of 14, he discovered his first trilobite, sparking a passionate interest that later became a career. He has named numerous species and still continues his research despite having retired from the Museum. He studies trilobites and graptolites, especially those from the Ordovician, fortey’s scientific output includes over 250 papers on trilobites, Ordovician stratigraphy and palaeogeography. He is the author of science books on a range of subjects including geology, palaeontology, evolution. Since 2012, Fortey has also been a television presenter appearing on BBC Four presenting natural history programmes and he was Collier Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the University of Bristol 2002. He was Visiting Professor of Palaeobiology at Oxford University 1999-2009, Fortey appeared in Putting Flesh on Bone, the second episode of David Attenboroughs Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives in 1989. He also made an appearance in another Attenborough series, First Life, travelling with the presenter to the Atlas mountains to find and he contributed to the speculative Discovery Channel documentary series The Future Is Wild. He appeared on BBC Twos University Challenge - The Professionals in 2004, as a member of the Palaeontological Association team, in 2013 he presented the BBC Four programme The Secret Life of Rock Pools, which aired on 16 April 2013. In 2014, Fortey presented the BBC Four three part series Fossil Wonderlands, Natures Hidden Treasures, when he travelled to fossil sites to more about the distant past. It aired from 11 March 2014, in 2014, he presented the BBC Four programme The Magic of Mushrooms, in which he showed that fungi had close but still poorly understood inter-relationships with plants and animals including man. In 2016, he presented the BBC Four programme Nature’s Wonderlands, Islands of Evolution, fossils, The Key to the Past, Natural History Museum The Hidden Landscape, Jonathan Cape, Bodley Head Life, An Unauthorised Biography. A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, the Wood for the Trees, The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood, William Collins He has also penned humorous titles under two pseudonyms. Fortey was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1997, in 1998, Life, An Unauthorised Biography was shortlisted for the Rhône-Poulenc Prize, in 2001, Trilobite. Life, an Unauthorised Biography was listed as one of ten Books of the Year by the New York Times and he has also turned his pen to writing dinosaur poems for children and even a spoof book on the Rubiks Cube
21.
British Society for Geomorphology
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The society’s journal, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms is published by Wiley-Blackwell and online access is available free to members. The Annual Conference of the British Society for Geomorphology is an international Open Conference and this Annual Meeting stimulates debate on new developments and advances in Geomorphology, and is a forum for emerging approaches to solve key challenges throughout pure and applied Geomorphology. The Annual Conference for 2017 will be held at the University of Hull 4-6 September, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms is the flagship international journal of the BSG, edited by Stuart Lane and five Associate Editors. The Journal publishes original papers, Earth Surface Exchanges for rapid publication, technical communications. In July 2012, the impact factor for the journal rose to 2.432 which is a 15% increase on the previous year. The BSG can trace its beginnings back to a meeting in Sheffield in 1958 where British geomorphologists gathered together to organise a Landform Survey of Britain, by 1959 this group appears to have been referring to itself as the British Universities Geomorphological Research Group. This short-lived group agreed, at its annual meeting, to disband itself. The first BGRG AGM was held on 1 October 1960, morphological mapping schemes, emphasising slope, were the subject for discussion at early meetings of the BGRG. Time-consuming to undertake, such schemes produced information about form but not about the processes or the origin of land forms and these schemes evolved in the 1970s to produce geomorphological maps of the UK. Several articles published in the Geographical Magazine in 1975 and 1976 explained the landform maps produced for all parts of Britain, in 2000,40 years of the BGRG were celebrated by returning to Sheffield, where it all started. Of those 19 geomorphologists who, by their action, can be regarded as the founders of the BGRG, one of them, Tony Orme, presented the Frost Lecture. In 2006 the BGRG changed its name to British Society for Geomorphology, the new Constitution stated that the object of the Society shall be the advancement of the science of geomorphology, in research, in all levels of education, and in its practical application
22.
Geological Society of London
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The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with over 12,000 Fellows, Fellows are entitled to the postnominal FGS, over 2,000 of whom are Chartered Geologists. The Society is a Registered Charity, No.210161 and it is also a member of the Science Council, and is licensed to award Chartered Scientist to qualifying members. The Society was founded on 13 October 1807 at the Freemasons Tavern, Great Queen Street and it was partly the outcome of a previous club known as the Askesian Society. It received its Royal Charter on 23 April 1825 from George IV, since 1874, the Society has been based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. This building houses the Societys library, which more than 300,000 volumes of books. It is a member of the UK Science Council, in 1991 it merged with the Institution of Geologists, which had been formed in 1977 to represent the geological profession. The Society celebrated its bicentenary in 2007 and it ran programmes in the geosciences in Britain and abroad, under the auspices of the science writer and palaeontologist Professor Richard Fortey, the president that year. The Society has 24 specialist groups and 15 regional groups which serve as an opportunity for those with specific interests to meet and they are all free for members to join and some are open to non-members. It also publishes the magazine Geoscientist for Fellows, and has a share in Geology Today and it also co-publishes journals and publishes on behalf of other organisations. The society counts many famous geologists amongst its past presidents, later well-known names include Alfred Harker, Arthur Trueman, H. H. Read, and Frederick Shotton. In 1831 it began issuing an annual award for geology. This is still the Societys premier medal, which in 2006 was awarded to James Lovelock, worth Prize The William Smith Fund The Distinguished Service Award Herries Davies, G. L
23.
Geological Society of Glasgow
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The Geological Society of Glasgow is a scientific society devoted to the study of geology in Scotland. The society contributed to the understanding of Scotlands glacial history, the Geological Society of Glasgow is registered as a charity in Scotland. The society was founded on 17 May 1858, by a group of amateur geology enthusiasts, the society organized its first field trip, to Campsie Glen, in June of that year. Some fossils from these early excursions are on display in the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, the society continues to attract lecturers at the forefront of the field, and publishes field guides of the Glasgow region. Each summer, the society runs day-long and residential field trips, each winter, the society hosts a lecture series, open to all, in the Gregory Building at Glasgow University. The Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow, first published in 1860, is online as part of the Geological Society of Londons Lyell Collection. The Transactions included papers by James Croll, Archibald Geikie, Lord Kelvin, in 1965, the Transactions merged with the Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society to form the Scottish Journal of Geology
24.
William Buckland
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William Buckland DD FRS was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and palaeontologist, writing the first full account of a fossil dinosaur and he was a pioneer in the use of fossilised faeces, for which he coined the term coprolites, to reconstruct ancient ecosystems. Having taken his BA in 1804, he went on to obtain his MA degree in 1808, in 1813, he was appointed reader in mineralogy, in succession to John Kidd, giving lively and popular lectures with increasing emphasis on geology and palaeontology. As curator of the Ashmolean Museum, he built up collections, touring Europe, in 1818, Buckland was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Thus, his catastrophism theory incorporated a version of Old Earth creationism or Gap creationism, however, over the next decade as geology continued to progress Buckland changed his mind. In his famous Bridgewater Treatise, published in 1836, he acknowledged that the account of Noahs flood could not be confirmed using geological evidence. He continued to live in Corpus Christi College and, in 1824, here he announced the discovery, at Stonesfield, of fossil bones of a giant reptile which he named Megalosaurus and wrote the first full account of what would later be called a dinosaur. In 1825, Buckland was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts, in December 1825 he married Mary Morland of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, an accomplished illustrator and collector of fossils. Their honeymoon was a year touring Europe, with visits to famous geologists and she continued to assist him in his work, as well as having nine children, five of whom survived to adulthood. His son Frank Buckland became a well known practical naturalist, author, on 18 January 1823 Buckland walked into Paviland Cave, where he discovered a skeleton which he named the Red Lady of Paviland, as he at first supposed it to be the remains of a local prostitute. It is the oldest anatomically modern human found in the United Kingdom, carbon-data tests have since dated the skeleton, now known to be male as from circa 33,000 years before present. The fossil hunter Mary Anning noticed that stony objects known as bezoar stones were found in the abdominal region of ichthyosaur skeletons found in the Lias formation at Lyme Regis. She also noted that if such stones were broken open they often contained fossilised fish bones and scales and these observations by Anning led Buckland to propose in 1829 that the stones were fossilised faeces. He coined the name coprolite for them, the name came to be the name for all fossilised faeces. After De le Beche had a print made based on his original watercolour. He also discussed other similar objects found in formations, including the fossilised hyena dung he had found in Kirkdale Cave. Murchison would later name these older strata, characterised by marine fossils, as Silurian. In 1832 Buckland presided over the meeting of the British Association
25.
Adam Sedgwick
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Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale, based on work which he did on Welsh rock strata, he proposed the Cambrian period in 1835, in a joint publication in which Roderick Murchison also proposed the Silurian period. Sedgwick was born in Dent, Yorkshire, the child of an Anglican vicar. He was educated at Sedbergh School and Trinity College, Cambridge and he studied mathematics and theology, and obtained his BA from the University of Cambridge in 1808 and his MA in 1811. His academic mentors at Cambridge were Thomas Jones and John Dawson and he became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge from 1818, holding the chair until his death in 1873. An 1851 portrait of Sedgwick by William Boxall hangs in Trinitys collection, Sedgwick studied the geology of the British Isles and Europe. He founded the system for the classification of Cambrian rocks and with Roderick Murchison worked out the order of the Carboniferous and these studies were mostly carried out in the 1830s. The investigations into the Devonian meant that Sedgwick was involved with Murchison in a debate with Henry De la Beche. Sedgwick investigated the phenomena of metamorphism and concretion, and was the first to distinguish clearly between stratification, jointing, and slaty cleavage and he was elected to Fellow of the Royal Society on 1 February 1821. In 1844, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts, Sedgwick was an owner of slaves in plantations in Jamaica and was awarded £3783 in compensation for 174 slaves, following the abolition of slavery by the British government. The Church of England, by no means a fundamentalist or evangelical church, during Sedgwicks life there developed something of a chasm between the conservative high church believers and the liberal wing. After simmering for years, the publication of Essays and Reviews by liberal churchmen in 1860 pinpointed the differences. In all this, Sedgwick, whose science and faith were intertwined in a natural theology, was definitely on the conservative side and he told the February 1830 meeting of the Geological Society of London, No opinion can be heretical, but that which is not true. Conflicting falsehoods we can comprehend, but truths can never war against each other, I affirm, therefore, that we have nothing to fear from the results of our enquiries, provided they be followed in the laborious but secure road of honest induction. In this way we may rest assured that we shall never arrive at conclusions opposed to any truth, either physical or moral, Sedgwicks subsequent investigations and discussions with continental geologists persuaded him that this was problematic. In early 1827, after spending weeks in Paris, he visited geological features in the Scottish Highlands with Roderick Murchison. He later wrote If I have been converted in part from the diluvian theory. it was. by my own gradual improved experience, perhaps I may date my change of mind from our journey in the Highlands, where there are so many indications of local diluvial operations. Humboldt ridiculed beyond measure when I met him in Paris and he strongly believed that species of organisms originated in a succession of Divine creative acts throughout the long expanse of history
26.
Roderick Murchison
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Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet KCB DCL FRS FRSE FLS PRGS PBA MRIA was a Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system. Murchison was born at Tarradale House, Muir of Ord, Ross-shire, the son of Kenneth Murchison. His wealthy father died in 1796, when Roderick was 4 years old, and he was sent to Durham School 3 years later, in 1808 he landed with Wellesley in Galicia, and was present at the actions of Roliça and Vimeiro. Subsequently under Sir John Moore, he took part in the retreat to Corunna, after eight years of service Murchison left the army, and married Charlotte Hugonin, the only daughter of General Hugonin, of Nursted House, Hampshire. Murchison and his wife spent two years in mainland Europe, particularly in Italy and they then settled in Barnard Castle, County Durham, England in 1818 where Murchison made the acquaintance of Sir Humphry Davy. Davy urged Murchison to turn his energy to science, after hearing that he wasted his time riding to hounds, Murchison became fascinated by the young science of geology and joined the Geological Society of London, soon becoming one of its most active members. His colleagues there included Adam Sedgwick, William Conybeare, William Buckland, William Fitton, Charles Lyell, turning his attention to Continental geology, he and Lyell explored the volcanic region of Auvergne, parts of southern France, northern Italy, Tyrol and Switzerland. A little later, with Sedgwick as his companion, Murchison attacked the problem of the geological structure of the Alps. Their joint paper giving the results of their study is a classic in the literature of Alpine geology. In 1831 he went to the border of England and Wales and these researches, together with descriptions of the coalfields and overlying formations in South Wales and the English border counties, were embodied in The Silurian System. The establishment of the Silurian system was followed by that of the Devonian system and he was accompanied by Edouard de Verneuil and Count Alexander von Keyserling, in conjunction with whom he produced a work on Russia and the Ural Mountains. The publication of this monograph in 1845 completes the first and most active half of Murchison’s scientific career and he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1840. In 1846 he was knighted, and in the year he presided over the meeting of the British Association at Southampton. He served on the Royal Commission on the British Museum, in 1845, whilst visiting Carclew in Cornwall, he met several Cornish miners who were going to Australia. Believing that there may have been gold there he asked them to send back likely samples and they did this and thus Murchison knew of the existence of gold in Australia before Edward Hargraves discovery. In 1857, Murchison was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society, in 1863, he was made a KCB, and three years later was created a baronet. There was hardly a foreign scientific society of note without his name among its honorary members, the French Academy of Sciences awarded him the prix Cuvier, and elected him one of its eight foreign members in succession to Michael Faraday. In 1855, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
27.
Charles Lyell
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Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. Principles of Geology also challenged theories popularized by Georges Cuvier, which were the most accepted and circulated ideas about geology in England at the time and he also coined the currently-used names for geological eras, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. He incorrectly conjectured that icebergs may be the emphasis behind the transport of glacial erratics, Lyell was one of the first to believe that the world is older than 300 million years, on the basis of its geological anomalies. He was a friend of Charles Darwin, and contributed significantly to Darwins thinking on the processes involved in evolution. He helped to arrange the publication in 1858 of papers by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on natural selection. He later published evidence from geology of the man had existed on Earth. Lyell was born 14 November 1797 in Scotland about 15 miles north of Dundee in Kinnordy and he was the eldest of ten children. Lyells father, also named Charles Lyell, was a lawyer and botanist of minor repute, the house/place of his birth is located in the north-west of the Central Lowlands in the valley of the Highland Boundary Fault. Round the house, in the valley, is farmland. His familys second home was in a different geological and ecological area, he spent much of his childhood at Bartley Lodge in the New Forest. Lyell entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1816, and attended William Bucklands lectures and he graduated BA second class in classics, December 1819, and M. A.1821. After graduation he took up law as a profession, entering Lincolns Inn in 1820 and he completed a circuit through rural England, where he could observe geological phenomena. In 1821 he attended Robert Jamesons lectures in Edinburgh, and visited Gideon Mantell at Lewes, in 1823 he was elected joint secretary of the Geological Society. As his eyesight began to deteriorate, he turned to geology as a full-time profession and his first paper, On a recent formation of freshwater limestone in Forfarshire, was presented in 1822. In 1832, Lyell married Mary Horner in Bonn, daughter of Leonard Horner, the new couple spent their honeymoon in Switzerland and Italy on a geological tour of the area. During the 1840s, Lyell travelled to the United States and Canada, after the Great Chicago Fire, Lyell was one of the first to donate books to help found the Chicago Public Library. In 1866, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Lyells wife died in 1873, and two years later Lyell himself died as he was revising the twelfth edition of Principles and he is buried in Westminster Abbey
28.
Henry De la Beche
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Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche KCB, FRS was an English geologist and palaeontologist, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, who helped pioneer early geological survey methods. He was the first President of the Palaeontographical Society, De la Beche was born in London. His father, an officer in the British Army, was an owner with an estate in Jamaica. De la Beche spent his life living with his mother in Lyme Regis. At the age of fourteen he entered the Royal Military College, the peace of 1815, however, changed his career. At the age of twenty-one De la Beche joined the Geological Society of London and he became an avid fossil collector and illustrator, collaborating with William Conybeare on an important paper on ichthyosaur and plesiosaur anatomy that was presented before the Society in 1821. He continued throughout life to be one of its most active, useful and honoured members and he visited many localities of geological interest, not only in Britain, but also in France, Jamaica and Switzerland. In Jamaica he stayed on his estate, Halse Hall, Clarendon Parish, in 1823–1824, returning to the south-west of England he began the detailed investigation of the rocks of Cornwall and Devon. The government then appointed De la Beche to work with the Ordnance Survey and this formed the starting point of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, which was officially recognised in 1835, when De la Beche was appointed as director. As the first director of the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street, increasing stores of valuable specimens began to arrive in London, and the building at Craigs Court, where the young Museum of Economic Geology was placed, became too small. De la Beche appealed to the authorities to provide a larger structure, parliament sanctioned the erection of a museum in Jermyn Street, London, and the organisation of a staff of professors with laboratories and other appliances. The establishment, in which were combined the offices of the Geological Survey, the Museum of Practical Geology, The Royal School of Mines and the Mining Record Office, was opened in 1851. In 1830, De la Beche published Sections and views, illustrative of geological phaenomena and he likewise wrote A Geological Manual, and Researches in Theoretical Geology, in which he enunciated a philosophical treatment of geological questions much in advance of his time. An early volume, How to Observe Geology, was rewritten and enlarged by him late in life, De la Beche was the principal antagonist of Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick in what has been labelled The Great Devonian Controversy. He frequently used cartoons as a way to express his frustrations on this. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1819 and he was knighted in 1848 and, near the close of his life he was awarded the Wollaston medal. In 1852, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. After his death, students at the Royal College of Mines and he is buried in the Kensal Green Cemetery, London
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Thomas Henry Huxley
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Thomas Henry Huxley PC PRS FLS was an English biologist, known as Darwins Bulldog for his advocacy of Charles Darwins theory of evolution. Huxleys famous debate in 1860 with Samuel Wilberforce was a key moment in the acceptance of evolution. Huxley had been planning to leave Oxford on the day, but, after an encounter with Robert Chambers. Wilberforce was coached by Richard Owen, against whom Huxley also debated about whether humans were closely related to apes. Huxley was slow to accept some of Darwins ideas, such as gradualism, and was undecided about natural selection, instrumental in developing scientific education in Britain, he fought against the more extreme versions of religious tradition. Originally coining the term in 1869, Huxley elaborated on agnosticism in 1889 to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not. Huxley states Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the fundamental axiom of modern science. In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, in matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. Use of that term has continued to the present day, Huxley had little formal schooling and was virtually self-taught. He became perhaps the finest comparative anatomist of the latter 19th century and he worked on invertebrates, clarifying relationships between groups previously little understood. Later, he worked on vertebrates, especially on the relationship between apes and humans, after comparing Archaeopteryx with Compsognathus, he concluded that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs, a theory widely accepted today. Thomas Henry Huxley was born in Ealing, which was then a village in Middlesex and he was the second youngest of eight children of George Huxley and Rachel Withers. Like some other British scientists of the century such as Alfred Russel Wallace. His father was a teacher at Ealing School until it closed. As a result, Thomas left school at age 10, after two years of formal schooling. Despite this unenviable start, Huxley was determined to educate himself and he became one of the great autodidacts of the nineteenth century. At first he read Thomas Carlyle, James Huttons Geology, in his teens he taught himself German, eventually becoming fluent and used by Charles Darwin as a translator of scientific material in German. He learned Latin, and enough Greek to read Aristotle in the original, later on, as a young adult, he made himself an expert, first on invertebrates, and later on vertebrates, all self-taught
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Joseph Prestwich
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Born in Clapham, Prestwich was educated in Paris and Reading before entering University College, London where he studied chemistry and natural philosophy. Whilst a student he founded the short-lived Zetetical Society, in 1830 he began working for the family wine business. This job required him to travel throughout the United Kingdom and also abroad to France and Belgium and he became a Fellow of Geological Society in 1833 and published his first paper there two years later. His 1836 memoir on the Geology of Coalbrookdale, based upon observations made during 1831 and 1832, from 1846 his attention focused upon the Tertiary deposits of the London Basin, which he subsequently classified and then correlated with Tertiary deposits throughout England, France and Belgium. In company with John Evans, Prestwich visited the gravel beds of St Acheul, during the late 1860s Prestwich served on the Royal Coal Commission and the Royal Commission on the Metropolitan Water Supply. In 1870–1872 he was president of the Geological Society, in 1874 he was appointed to the chair of geology at the University of Oxford. Here he produced in two volumes Geology, Chemical and Physical, Stratigraphical and Palaeontological, in 1888 he retired from Oxford to Shoreham in Kent where he continued to work until his death in 1896. He married Grace Anne McCall, the niece of Hugh Falconer, obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Volume 60. Works written by or about Joseph Prestwich at Wikisource
