John Phillips (geologist)

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John Phillips

John Phillips FRS (25 December 1800 – 24 April 1874) was an English geologist.[1] In 1841 he published the first global geologic time scale based on the correlation of fossils in rock strata, thereby helping to standardize terminology including the term Mesozoic, which he invented.

Life and work

Phillips was born at Marden in Wiltshire. His father belonged to an old Welsh family, but settled in England as an officer of excise and married the sister of William Smith, a renowned English geologist. When both parents died when he was a child, Phillips's custody was assumed by Smith and Phillips was brought into Smith's London home during early 1815. During the next few years he attended various schools and helped his uncle with his geological research and writing; he also developed an interest in lithography (printing from prepared slabs of stone), and was among the earliest English practitioners of the process, experimenting with it between about 1816 and 1819.[2] After ending school, Phillips accompanied Smith on his wanderings in connection with his preparation of geological maps. During the spring of 1824 Smith went to York to deliver a course of lectures on geology, and his nephew Phillips accompanied him. Phillips accepted engagements in the principal Yorkshire towns to arrange their museums and give courses of lectures on the collections contained therein. York became his residence, and he obtained during 1826 the situation of keeper of the Yorkshire Museum[3] and secretary of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society at the same time as Henry Robinson was Librarian of the YPS.

From that centre Phillips extended his operations to towns beyond the county, and by 1831 he included

British Association for the Advancement of Science was initiated at York, and Phillips was one of the people who organized it. He became the first assistant secretary in 1832, a job which he had until 1859. In 1834 he accepted the professorship of geology at King's College London
, but retained his job at York.

In 1834 Phillips was elected a fellow of the

Malvern Hills, of which he prepared the elaborate account that appears in vol. ii. of the Memoirs of the Survey (1848). In 1844 he became professor of geology for Trinity College Dublin
.

Oxford University Museum
.

Nine years later, on the death of

opposition.[5]

On 23 April 1874, he dined at

All Souls College, but on leaving he slipped and fell down a flight of stone stairs. He died the next day, and was buried in York Cemetery, beside his sister Anne and his benefactor Thomas Gray
. His coffin was accompanied to Oxford's railway station by 200 university academics.

Craters on Mars and the Moon are named after him.

Selected writings

Portrait

The first paper Phillips published was On the Direction of the Diluvial Currents in Yorkshire (1827). He contributed to the Philosophical Magazine, the Journal of the Geological Society, and the Geological Magazine. He was also the author of separate works, including:

To these should be added his Monograph of British Belemnitidae (1865), for the Palaeontographical Society, and his geological map of the British Isles (1847).[6] His manuscript notebook describing his early experiments with lithography was published by the Printing Historical Society in 2016.

Blue plaque

Blue plaque commemorating John Phillips in the York Museum Gardens

In February 2016 a blue plaque commemorating John Phillips was erected on the side of St. Mary's Lodge (in York Museum Gardens), where Phillips lived in the mid-19th Century.[7] The plaque, dedicated by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, York Civic Trust and York Museums Trust reads: "John Phillips FRS, 1800-1874, Geologist. Yorkshire Philosophical Society Officer and first Keeper of the Yorkshire Museum lived here between 1839 and 1853."

References

  1. ^ "Phillips, John (1800-1874)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  2. ^ Michael Twyman, editor, John Phillips's lithographic notebook: reproduced in facsimile from the original at the Oxford Museum of Natural History. London: Printing Historical Society, 2016.
  3. ISBN 0-900657-56-1
    .
  4. ^ Rudwick, Martin Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform (2008) pp. 539–545
  5. Bibcode:2012AntAs...6...44H
    .
  6. ^ Phillips, John (1834). A Guide to Geology. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman. p. 138. john Phillips geological map.- See the plates following page 138.
  7. ^ "BLUE PLAQUE UNVEILED TO COMMEND YORK GEOLOGIST JOHN PHILLIPS FRS". York Museums Trust. 25 February 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
  • Morrell, Jack (2001). "Genesis and geochronology: the case of John Phillips (1800–1874)". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 190 (1). Geological Society of London: 85–90.
    S2CID 129792582. (pdf
    )
Attribution

External links

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