Peter Bellinger Brodie was an English 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 churchman, the son of the conveyancer Peter Bellinger Brodie

Peter Bellinger Brodie (conveyancer)

-Life:Brodie was born at Winterslow, Wiltshire, on 20 August 1778, being the eldest son of the Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie, rector of Winterslow 1742-1804, who died 19 March 1804, by his marriage in 1775 with Sarah, third daughter of Benjamin Collins of Milford, Salisbury, who died 7 January 1847...

 and nephew of Sir Benjamin C. Brodie. He was born in 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...

 in 1815. While residing with his father at Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...

, he gained some knowledge of natural history and an interest in fossil

Fossil

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

s from visits to the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons

Royal College of Surgeons of England

The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...

, at a time when William Clift

William Clift

William Clift, , British naturalist, born at Burcombe, about half a mile from the town of Bodmin in Cornwall, on 14 Feb. 1775, was the youngest of the seven children of Robert Clift, who died a few years later, leaving his wife and family in the depths of poverty.-Education:The boy was sent to...

 was curator. Through the influence of Clift he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society early in 1834.

Proceeding to Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

, Brodie came under the influence of Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...

, and devoted his time to geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

. Entering the church in 1838, he was curate at Wylye in Wiltshire, and for a short time at Steeple Claydon

Steeple Claydon

Steeple Claydon is a village and also a civil parish within the district of Aylesbury Vale in Buckinghamshire, England. It has an unusually high number of gingers, it is speculated that this is due to most people's mums also being their aunts. Steeple Claydon is located about four miles south of...

 in Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

, becoming later rector of Down Hatherley

Down Hatherley

Down Hatherley is a civil parish and village in Tewkesbury near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. It has approximately 165 houses and a population of 450....

 in 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 finally (1855) vicar of Rowington

Rowington

Rowington is a village and civil parish in the English county of Warwickshire. It is five miles north-west of the town of Warwick and five miles south-west of the town of Kenilworth...

 in Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

, and rural dean. Records of geological observations in all these districts were published by him.

At Cambridge Brodie obtained fossil shells from the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 deposit at Barnwell, Northamptonshire

Barnwell, Northamptonshire

Barnwell is a village in the district of East Northamptonshire in England, south of the town of Oundle, north of London and south-west of Peterborough...

; in the Vale of Wardour he discovered in Purbeck Beds the isopod named by Henri Milne-Edwards

Henri Milne-Edwards

Henri Milne-Edwards was an eminent French zoologist.Henri Milne-Edwards was the 27th child of William Edwards, an English planter and militia colonel in Jamaica and Elisabeth Vaux, a French. He was born in Bruges, Belgium, where his parents had retired. At that time, Bruges was a part of the...

 Archaeoniscus Brodiei; in Buckinghamshire he described the outliers of Purbeck and Portland Beds; and in the Vale of Gloucester the lias

Lias

Lias may refer to:*In geology:**The Lias Group, a group in the stratigraphy of Great Britain, formed during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic epochs. It includes the Blue Lias and White Lias...

 and oolite

Oolite

Oolite is a sedimentary rock formed from ooids, spherical grains composed of concentric layers. The name derives from the Hellenic word òoion for egg. Strictly, oolites consist of ooids of diameter 0.25–2 mm; rocks composed of ooids larger than 2 mm are called pisolites...

s claimed his attention. Fossil insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s, however, formed the subject of his special studies (History of the Fossil Insects of the Secondary Rocks of England, 1845), and many of his published papers relate to them.

Brodie was an active member of the Cotteswold Naturalist's Club and of the Warwickshire Natural History and Archaeological Society, and in 1854 he was chief founder of the Warwickshire Naturalists' and Archaeologists' Field Club. In 1887 the Murchison Medal

Murchison Medal

An award established by Roderick Murchison, who died in 1871. One of the closing public acts of Murchison’s life was the founding of a chair of geology and mineralogy in the University of Edinburgh. Under his will there was established the Murchison Medal and geological fund to be awarded annually...

 was awarded to him by the Geological Society of London

Geological Society of London

The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...

. He died at Rowington on the 1 November 1897.