William Smith (geologist)
William Smith | |
---|---|
Geological map of England and Wales | |
Awards | Wollaston Medal (1831) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Geology |
William 'Strata' Smith (23 March 1769 – 28 August 1839) was an
Early life
Smith was born in the village of Churchill, Oxfordshire, the son of John Smith (1735–1777), the village blacksmith, and his wife Ann (née Smith; 1745–1807).[3] His father died when Smith was eight years old, and he and his siblings were raised by his uncle, a farmer also named William Smith.[4] Largely self-educated, Smith was intelligent and observant, read widely from an early age, and showed an aptitude for mathematics and drawing. In 1787, he met and found work as an assistant for Edward Webb of Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, a surveyor. He was quick to learn and soon became proficient at the trade.
In 1791, Smith travelled to Somerset to make a valuation survey of the Sutton Court estate, and building on earlier work in the same area by John Strachey.[5] He stayed in the area for the next eight years, working first for Webb and later for the Somersetshire Coal Canal Company, living at Rugborne Farm in High Littleton. During this period, Smith inspected coal mines in the area, where he first observed and recorded the various layers of rock and coal exposed by the mining. Smith's coal mine studies, combined with his subsequent observations of the strata exposed by canal excavations, proved crucial to the formation of his theories of stratigraphy.
Life's work
Smith worked at one of the estate's older mines, the Mearns Pit at
He published his findings with many pictures from his fossil collection, enabling others to investigate their distribution and test his theories. His collection is especially good on
It could be seen from Smith's findings that the deeper – and therefore older – the strata were, the more the fossilised species within them differed from living organisms. This gave great support and impetus to the hypothesis of biological evolution (which pre-dated the work of Charles Darwin).[10]
Publication and disappointment
In 1799 Smith produced the first large-scale
In 1801, he drew a rough sketch of what would become the first geological map of most of
In another of his books Strata Identified by Organized Fossils (London 1816–1819), he recognised that strata contained distinct fossil assemblages which could be used to match rocks across regions (Smith's laws).[18] In 1817 he drew a remarkable geological section from Snowdon to London, a development of the ‘sketch’ on his map, illustrating the three-dimensional relationship between geology and landscape via a perspective sketch of the landscape showing the topography. Effectively this was the first block diagram, now routinely used in geography textbooks and animations.[19]
A common narrative in some recent accounts of Smith’s life and his map asserts that rivalry built up between Smith and the first President of the
Your correspondent considers me, in common with many other persons, actuated by feelings of hostility towards Mr. Smith. Now my feelings towards that gentleman are directly the reverse. I respect him for the important services he has rendered to geology, and I esteem him for the example of dignity, meekness, modesty, and candour, which he continually, though ineffectually, exhibits to his self-appointed champion.[24]
Another common but misleading narrative in some recent accounts of Smith’s map has Greenough's 1820 map undercutting the price and sales of Smith's map, thereby citing Greenough as a primary cause of landing Smith in debtor's prison. However, Greenough's map could not have contributed to the debts for which Smith was consigned to prison as the Greenough map, although dated 1819 on the map, was not published until May 1820, after Smith's incarceration. In fact Smith's maps retailed at 5 guineas, which was the same price as that privileged to Geological Society members for purchase of the Greenough 1820 map. However the Greenough map retailed to public at 6 guineas, thereby being a more expensive purchase than Smith’s map.[25] Also, although neither map sold well, the number of sales of Smith's map appears to have topped those of Greenough's map (only 196 copies recorded as sold) and there are only 15 names in common between Smith's subscribers' list and the list of those who bought the Geological Society's map.[26]
Smith's various projects, starting with a mortgage taken to purchase his estate at Tucking Mill in Somerset in 1798, accrued financial commitments that ran into a series of difficulties which he managed to withstand by borrowing money from sympathetic creditors and mortgagors and funding repayments by taking on a relentless schedule of work commissions between 1801 and 1819. However a project to quarry Bath Stone near his property, for sale to the London property development market, failed to return the significant investment it had required due to poor quality stone and Smith found himself in default to co-investor Charles Conolly. Smith had used his Bath estate as security against Conolly's loan but there was excess to pay. In attempting to stave off his debt Smith sold his 'fossil collection' to the British Museum for £700,[27] but this proved insufficient and funds fell short of the sum owed to Conolly by £300 and as a consequence Smith was sent to debtors' prison in 1819. Through all this financial turmoil, Smith managed to publish his map and subsequent associated publications but in 1817 he remarked "My income is as yet not anywise improved by what has been done, the profits being required to liquidate the debt incurred by publication."[28]
On 31 August 1819 Smith was released from
Later recognition
It was not until February 1831 that the
In 1838 Smith was appointed as one of the commissioners to select building-stone for the new Palace of Westminster. He died in Northampton, and is buried a few feet from the west tower of St Peter's Church, Northampton, now a redundant church. The inscription on the grave is badly worn but the name "William Smith" can just be seen. Inside St Peter’s Church is an impressive bust and inscription.
Subsequent modern geological maps have been based on Smith's original work, of which several copies have survived[33] including one which has been put on display (alongside the Greenough map) at the Geological Society of London which can be visited by the public, free and without an appointment.[34]
Legacy
- The first geological map of most of Great Britain, much copied in his time, and the basis for all others.
- Geological surveys around the world owe a debt to his work.
- His nephew John Phillips lived during his youth with William Smith and was his apprentice. John Phillips became a major figure in 19th century geology and paleontology—among other things he is credited as first to specify most of the table of geological eras that is used today (1841).
- A List of craters on Mars: O-Z#S)
- The Geological Society of London presents an annual lecture in his honour.
- In 2005, a William Smith 'facsimile' was created at the Natural History Museum as a notable gallery character to patrol its displays; others were Carl Linnaeus, Mary Anning, and Dorothea Bate.[35]
- His work was an important foundation for the work of Charles Darwin.
- The Rotunda Museum in Scarborough was re-opened as 'Rotunda – The William Smith Museum of Geology', on 9 May 2008 by Lord Oxburgh; however, the Prince of Wales visited the Rotunda as early as 14 September 2007 to view the progress of the refurbishment of this listed building.
- A building at Keele University containing the Geography, Geology and the Environment department is named after two William Smiths, both influential in the development of mapping. The first William Smith (1546?–1618) laid the foundations of the conventions of county mapping and of urban cartography. The second William Smith commemorated in the building's name is William Smith the author of the first geological map of England and Wales and subject of this article.[36]
See also
- The Map that Changed the World, a biography of Smith by Simon Winchester
- Geology of Great Britain
- William Maclure
- George Bellas Greenough
References
- ISBN 0060193611
- ^ Thomas George Bonney (1898). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co. . In
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25932. Retrieved 1 December 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Winchester (2001), The Map That Changed the World, p. 27
- ^ "Smith's other debt". Geoscientist 17.7 July 2007. The Geological Society. Archived from the original on 10 March 2008. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
- ^ "William Smith 1769–1839 "The Father of English Geology"". Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
- ^ "William Smith (1769–1839)". University of California Museum of Paleontology. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
- ^ "William Smith". Natural History Museum. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
- ISBN 978-1-899889-32-7.
- ^ Asimov, I. (1982) Exploring the Earth & the Cosmos, Crown Publishers Inc., New York, p. 200
- ^ Phillips, John (1844). Memoirs of William Smith (First ed.). London: John Murray. p. 54. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
- ^ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Greene, J.C. and Burke, J.G. (1978) “The Science of Minerals in the Age of Jefferson”. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 68, No. 4, pp. 1–113 [39]
- ^ "William Smith's Geological Map of England". Earth Observatory. NASA. 10 May 2008. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
- ISBN 0-691-02350-6.
- .
- ^ "William "Strata" Smith (1769–1838)". HoG Biographies. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
- ISBN 978-0470022214.
- .
- ISBN 978-0-670-88407-0.
- ^ "Map Collections". Lapworth Museum of Geology. University of Birmingham. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
- ^ "Lot 121, Greenough (George Bellas), A Geological Map of England & Wales by G. B. Greenough Esq. F.R.S., President of the Geological Society, published by the Geological Society, 2nd edition, November 1st. 1839". Dominic Winter Auctions Printed Books, Maps & Documents 31 January 2018. Dominic Winter Auctions. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
- .
- .
- ^ Minutes of 7 January. Geological Society. 1820.
- .
- .
- .
- ISBN 978-0313341557.
- ^ "November 1826 – June 1833". Proceedings of the Geological Society of London. I: 271. 1834. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
- ^ Palmer, D. An unsung hero put on the map. Nature 412, 120 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35084114
- ^ British Association at Dublin in 1835. Nature 136, 232–233 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136232b0
- .
- ^ "Visiting the William Smith Map". Geological Society of London. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
- ^ Review by Miles Russell of Discovering Dorothea by Karolyn Shindler at ucl.ac.uk (accessed 23 November 2007)
- ^ "William Smith Building". History in Keele Buildings. Keele University. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
Other sources
- John Diemer (editor), Special Issue from the William Smith Map Bicentenary Meeting sponsored by the History of Geology Group and held at the Geological Society London, 23–24 April 2015. Earth Sciences History, Volume 25, No. 1. Online ISSN 1944-6187
- John L. Morton, Strata (New Edition, 2004), Horsham: Brocken Spectre Publishing. ISBN 0-9546829-1-2
- ISBN 0-14-028039-1
- ISBN 0-9544941-0-5).
- Hugh Torrens, "In Commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the death of William Smith (1769–1839)"
- William Smith's Private Papers, Oxford University
External links
- Works of William Smith at the Oxford Digital Library
- William Smith's Maps – Interactive – different issues of the maps with authoritative background information
- Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with Part of Scotland – full digital facsimile at Linda Hall Library