William Buckland

Biography

He studied in theology with the Corpus Christi College with the Université of Oxford, and delivered himself at the same time successfully to the natural science.

In 1813 it succeeds John Kidd to give courses of geology and Minéralogie. In 1819 he is the first holder of a new station of in charge of teaching. In 1818 it is elected member of the Royal Society and in 1824 and again in 1840 he becomes off president of the Geological Society London. He is also member of the Société linnéenne of London. In 1832 it chairs the second meeting of the British association of promotion of sciences which is held then with Oxford. It became in 1845 Doyen of Westminster. In 1848 it receives the Médaille Wollaston. The Royal Society decrees the to him Médaille Copley in 1822.

He especially endeavoured to confirm by the discoveries of geology the accounts of the Genèse. Its reputation is based on its publications, in particular Reliquiæ diluvianæ, Relics off the Deluge 1823 where it supplements its observations of remainders of extinct species discovered in the caves of Kirkdale in the Yorkshire and exposes its convictions on the parallel with the Biblical story of the flood

The belief of Buckland in the Catastrophisme do of it one of the first partisans of the theory of the glaciation proposed by Louis Agassiz what leads it to work to try to highlight traces of Glaciation in Great Britain.

An eccentric genius

W. Buckland is as known its work as for its eccentricity. It had at his place hundreds of bone and stones and had many live animals. He also declared that he had eaten of all kinds of animals and insects. He gave even his courses accompanied by his bear which he had disguised as a professor for the occasion

In 1824 one discovers close to Oxford a half of jaw with a tooth. Buckland surprises everyone by declaring that this jaw belongs to a giant reptile. It was right because indeed, this jaw belonged to the Mégalosaurus. Buckland, without the knowledge, had just baptized the first of the dinosaurs.

Publications

Reliquiæ diluvianæ (1823)
Geology and Mineralogy in their relationship with the natural Theology (1837), work which belongs to the Traités Bridgewater (translated by Louis-Michel-François Doyère, 1838).

Source

Magazine Dinosaurs, on the trace of the giants of prehistory , n° 9.

External bonds

Buckland on the site of the natural museum of history of the university of Oxford

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