John Woodward was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

, antiquarian

Antiquarian

An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...

 and geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

, and founder by bequest of the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology

Woodwardian Professor of Geology

The Woodwardian Professor of Geology is a professorship held in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. It was founded by John Woodward in 1728...

 at Cambridge University. As a leading physician who had never been to university, Woodward was a leading figure on the "Modern" side in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns

Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns

The quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns was a literary and artistic debate that heated up in the early 1690s and shook the Académie française.-Description:...

 in early 18th century England, on the medical and other fronts.
Though a leading English supporter of the importance of observation and experiment in what we now call science, none of his numerous new theories have stood the test of time.

Life

Woodward was born on 1 May 1665, or possibly 1668, in a village (possibly Wirksworth

Wirksworth

Wirksworth is a small market town in Derbyshire, England, with a population of over 9,000.The population of the Wirksworth area including Cromford, Bolehill and Middleton-by-Wirksworth is about 12,000. Wirksworth is listed in the Domesday Book in 1086. Within it is the source of the River...

) in Derbyshire

Derbyshire

Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

; his family may have been from Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

 and his mother's maiden surname Burdett. At the age of sixteen he went to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he was initially apprenticed to a linen

Linen

Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....

 draper

Draper

Draper is the now largely obsolete term for a wholesaler, or especially retailer, of cloth, mainly for clothing, or one who works in a draper's shop. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. The drapers were an important trade guild...

, but later studied medicine with Dr. Peter Barwick

Peter Barwick

-Life:He was the younger brother of John Barwick, and like him was educated at Sedbergh School, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he was a foundation scholar. He was appointed by Bishop Matthew Wren to the fellowship at St John's, in the gift of the Bishop of Ely, but could not be admitted...

, physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 to Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

. In 1692 he was appointed Gresham Professor of Physic

Gresham Professor of Physic

The Professor of Physic at Gresham College in London, England, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1596 / 7, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to eight and in addition the college now has visiting...

. In 1693 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

, in 1695 was made M.D. by Archbishop Tenison and also by Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

, and in 1702 became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians

Royal College of Physicians

The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...

. He died on 25 April 1728, and was buried in Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...

.

Works

In 1699, John Woodward published his water culture (hydroponics) experiments with spearmint. He found that plants in less-pure water sources grew better than plants in distilled water.

While still a student he became interested in botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

 and natural history, and during visits to Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

 his attention was attracted by the fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s that are abundant in many parts of that county; and he began to form the great collection with which his name is associated. His views were set forth in An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, especially minerals, &c. (1695; and ed. 1702, 3rd ed. 1723). This was followed by Brief Instructions for making Observations in all Parts of the World (1696). He was author also of An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England (2 vols., 1728 and 1729). In these works he showed that the stony surface of the earth was divided into strata, and that the enclosed shells were originally generated at sea; but his views of the method of formation of the rocks were entirely erroneous. Indeed, they were satirized very effectively by John Arbuthnot

John Arbuthnot

John Arbuthnot, often known simply as Dr. Arbuthnot, , was a physician, satirist and polymath in London...

, who consistently ridiculed Woodward's heavily classicist method and what Arbuthnot saw as personal venality. In his elaborate Catalogue he described his rock

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

s, mineral

Mineral

A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...

s and fossils in a manner far in advance of the age.

His The State of Physick and of Diseases ... Particularly of the Smallpox (1718) arose from a fierce dispute over smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

 which had been going on for many years, with John Freind

John Freind

John Freind , FRS, was an English physician.-Life:He was younger brother of Robert Freind , headmaster of Westminster School, and was born at Croton in Northamptonshire...

 his leading adversary. Both freely accused the other of killing their patients (in the modern view a judgement that few doctors of the age can escape). Woodward claimed that his experimental evidence showed that the disease arose from an excess of "bilious salts", whereas Freind saw the causes of the disease as unknowable

Dr Woodward's Shield

A celebrated shield

Shield

A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a hit from a sword, mace or battle axe to the side of the shield-bearer....

, bought by John Conyers

John Conyers (apothecary)

John Conyers was an English apothecary and pioneering archaeologist.Conyers had a shop in Fleet Street, near St Paul's Cathedral during the period of construction of Sir Christopher Wren's new cathedral to replace Old St Paul's after the Great Fire of London, and collected the medieval and Roman...

 from a London ironmonger, was sold after his death by one of his daughters to Woodward. Dr Woodward's Shield, now in the British Museum, is today recognised as a classicising French Renaissance

French Renaissance

French Renaissance is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century...

 buckler

Buckler

A buckler is a small shield, 15 to 45 cm in diameter, gripped in the fist; it was generally used as a companion weapon in hand-to-hand combat during the Medieval and Renaissance, as its size made it poor protection against missile weapons but useful in deflecting the blow of...

 of the mid-16th century, perhaps sold from the Royal Armouries

Royal Armouries

The Royal Armouries is the United Kingdom's National Museum of Arms and Armour. It is the United Kingdom's oldest museum, and one of the oldest museums in the world. It is also one of the largest collections of arms and armour in the world, comprising the UK's National Collection of Arms and...

 of Charles II, but was thought by Woodward and others to be an original Roman work. Woodward published in 1713 a treatise on the shield which provoked a satire

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 by Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

, written in the same year but not printed until 1733, on the "follies of antiquarianism". He is mentioned twice in Pope's Fourth Satire of Dr. John Donne

John Donne

John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...

, and is one candidate for the original of "Mummius" in Pope's The Dunciad

The Dunciad

The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the Dunciad Variorum was published anonymously in 1729. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a...

.

Bequest

By his will he directed that his personal estate and effects were to be sold, and that land of the yearly value of one hundred and fifty pounds was to be purchased and conveyed to the University of Cambridge. A lecturer was to be chosen, and paid £100 a year to read at least four lectures every year, on some one or other of the subjects treated of in his Natural History of the Earth. Hence arose the Woodwardian professorship of geology

Woodwardian Professor of Geology

The Woodwardian Professor of Geology is a professorship held in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. It was founded by John Woodward in 1728...

. To the same university he bequeathed his collection of English fossils, to be under the care of the lecturer, and these formed the nucleus of the Woodwardian museum at Cambridge. The specimens have since been removed to the new Sedgwick museum

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, opened in 1904, is the geology museum of the University of Cambridge in England. It is part of the Department of Earth Sciences and is located on the University's Downing Site in Downing Street, central Cambridge, England.The Sedgwick has a collection of more...

.

External links

• Google Books full view of 3rd ed. of An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, especially minerals, &c.
• John Woodward in the Dictionary of National Biography
  Dictionary of National Biography
  The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...
  
  -- digitized version