William Smith (geologist)

Categories: 1769 births | 1839 deaths | English geologists

Image:William Smith.g.jpg
William Smith.

William Smith (March 23 1769–August 28 1839) was an English geologist.

Smith is credited with creating the first nationwide geologic map and is known as the "Father of English Geology". However, recognition was slow in coming. His work was plagiarised, he was financially ruined, and spent time in debtors' prison. The genteel practitioners of the new science of geology and founders of the geological societies snubbed the low-born Smith. It was only much later in Smith's life that he received recognition for his accomplishments.

Smith was born in the village of Churchill, Oxfordshire. In 1787, he 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, he travelled to Somerset to make a valuation survey of an estate. He stayed there for the next eight years, working first for Webb and later for the Somersetshire Coal Canal Company.

Smith worked at one of the estate's older mines, the Mearns Pit at High Littleton. As he observed the strata at Mearns Pit he realised that the strata were arranged in a predictable pattern, and that the various strata could always be found in the same relative positions. Additionally, each particular stratum could be identified by the fossils it contained, and the same succession of fossil groups from older to younger rocks could be found in many parts of England. This gave Smith a testable hypothesis, which he termed the principle of faunal succession, and he began his search to determine if the relationships between the strata and their characteristics were consistent throughout the country. During his subsequent travels, first as a surveyor (appointed by noted engineer John Rennie) for the canal company until 1799 when he was dismissed, and later, he was continually taking samples and mapping the locations of the various strata. This was to earn him the name "Strata Smith".

In 1799 Smith produced the first large scale geological map, of the area around Bath, Somerset.

In 1815 he published the first geological map of any country. It covered the whole of England and Wales. Conventional signs were used to mark canals, tunnels, tramways and roads, collieries, lead, copper and tin mines, together with salt and alum works.

In 1817 he drew a remarkable geological section from Snowdon to London. Unfortunately, Smith's maps were plagiarised and sold at prices lower than he was asking. He went into debt and finally became bankrupt.

On August 31 1819 Smith was released from King's Bench Prison in London, a debtors' prison. He returned to his home of fourteen years at 15 Buckingham Street to find a bailiff at the door and his home and property seized. Smith then worked as an itinerent surveyor for many years until one of his employers, Sir John Johnstone, recognised Smith and took steps to give him the recognition he deserved.

In February 1831 the Geological Society of London conferred on Smith the first Wollaston medal. It was on this occasion that the President, Adam Sedgwick, referred to Smith as "the Father of English Geology". He travelled to Dublin with the British Association in 1835, and there totally unexpectedly received an honorary Doctorate of Laws (LL.D.) In 1838 he was appointed as one of the commissioners to select building-stone for the new Palace of Westminster. He died in Northampton, and is buried in an unmarked grave a few feet from the west tower of St Peter's, Marefair.

A crater on Mars is named after him. The Geological Society of London presents an annual lecture in his honour.

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