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Apr 9, 2024 · William Smith (born March 23, 1769, Churchill, Oxfordshire, Eng.—died Aug. 28, 1839, Northampton, Northamptonshire) was an English engineer and geologist who is best known for his development of the science of stratigraphy. Smith’s great geologic map of England and Wales (1815) set the style for modern geologic maps, and many of the ...
- Life and Education
- Notable Contributions
- Later Achievements
Born in March 23, 1769 at The Forge in Churchill, Oxfordshire, England, William Smith was the eldest son of John Smith, the village blacksmith, and Ann Smith. His father died when he was only seven years old eight and was then raised by his uncle, who was a farmer. As a child, William became interested in the local fossils and began collecting them...
In 1787, Smith trained under Edward Webb, a master land surveyor and learned how to measure and value land. As Edward Webb’s assistant, William Smith surveyed estates in Somerset. He then obtained a position surveying routes for a planned coal canal from Somerset to London in 1794. His work included a fact finding expedition of the canals in the mi...
Smith moved to Scarborough in Yorkshire in 1834 where he helped found a geological museum “The Rotunda”. The museum focused mainly on the geology of the Yorkshire Coast. As a tribute in his honor, it was renamed “Rotunda: The William Smith Museum of Geology” in May 2008. He received an honorary LLD degree from Trinity College, Dublin in 1835. He wa...
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Nov 30, 2015 · Smith was born on 23 March 1769 in the Cotswold village of Churchill where his father was the blacksmith. He had a limited schooling but at the age of eighteen he was taken on as an apprentice surveyor in the practice of Edward Webb in Stow-on-the-Wold. He showed an aptitude for measurement and mathematics and an eye for the shape of the land.
I have often times wished for a mappe of England, coloured according to the colours of the earth; with markes of the fossils and minerals. [John Aubrey, ‘The Natural History of Wiltshire’, (1691)] Portrait of William Smith by Hugues Fourau, 1837 (GSL/POR/15) In August 1815, William Smith (1769-1839) published what is acknowledged as the first geological map of a country ever produced, ‘A ...
Jun 11, 2018 · Smith, William (1769-1839) English geologist and cartographer. William Smith is often called the founder of English geology, and the founder of stratigraphical geology.His interests in fossils and the countryside led to a method to identify rock strata, along with the first large-scale geological maps of any country.
Below is the article summary. For the full article, see William Smith . William Smith, (born March 23, 1769, Churchill, Oxfordshire, Eng.—died Aug. 28, 1839, Northampton, Northamptonshire), English engineer and geologist, known as the founder of the science of stratigraphy. The son of a blacksmith, he was largely self-educated.
1 William 'Strata' Smith, 1769–1839, also known as the 'Father of English Geology'. 2 Life and work. 3 Mapping England and Wales. 4 William Smith — the applied geologist. 5 Systematic mapping. 5.1 The forerunner of the Geological Survey. 5.2 Mapping for the 21st Century. 6 Publications relating to William Smith in the BGS Library.
