William Pengelly
Encyclopedia
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"...
FGS (12 January 1812 – 16 March 1894) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
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 early archaeologist who was one of the first to contribute proof that the Biblical chronology of the earth calculated by Archbishop James Ussher
James Ussher
James Ussher was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56...
was incorrect.
Biography
Born at East LooeLooe
Looe is a small coastal town, fishing port and civil parish in the former Caradon district of south-east Cornwall, England, with a population of 5,280 . Looe is divided in two by the River Looe, East Looe and West Looe being connected by a bridge...
in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, the son of a sea captain, he left school at the age of 12 to join his father's crew. Returning to Looe while still in his teens, he spent his time reading widely and learning mathematics. In about 1836 he moved to Torquay
Torquay
Torquay is a town in the unitary authority area of Torbay and ceremonial county of Devon, England. It lies south of Exeter along the A380 on the north of Torbay, north-east of Plymouth and adjoins the neighbouring town of Paignton on the west of the bay. Torquay’s population of 63,998 during the...
and opened a day school teaching according to the fashionable Pestalozzian
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach....
method. In 1846 he gave up his successful school to become a private tutor and also started lecturing on various scientific subjects - a career he continued for the rest of his life.
Pengelly published his first scientific paper in 1849, on fossil fish found in East Cornwall. This was the first of some 120 papers on 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...
, paleontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
and human prehistory he would publish. In 1862 Pengelly reviewed the geology of the Tertiary
Tertiary
The Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...
lignite
Lignite
Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, or Rosebud coal by Northern Pacific Railroad,is a soft brown fuel with characteristics that put it somewhere between coal and peat...
deposits of Bovey Tracey
Bovey Tracey
Bovey Tracey is a small town in Devon, England, on the edge of Dartmoor, its proximity to which gives rise to the "slogan" used on the town's boundary signs, "The Gateway to the Moor". The locals just call the town "Bovey" ....
in an important paper read to 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"...
, and the following year was elected a fellow of the society.
Pengelly's desire to educate led him to found the Torquay Young Men's Society (later the Torquay Mechanics' Institute), the Torquay Natural History Society, and (in 1862) the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art (now The Devonshire Association
The Devonshire Association
The Devonshire Association is a learned society founded in 1862 by William Pengelly and modelled on the British Association, but concentrating on research subjects linked to Devon in the fields of science, literature and the arts.-History:...
). He also contributed papers to the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall
Royal Geological Society of Cornwall
The Royal Geological Society of Cornwall is a geological society based in Cornwall in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1814 to promote the study of the geology of Cornwall, and is the second oldest geological society in the world....
.
Pengelly married his cousin, Mary Ann Mudge, in 1838. They had three children, before she died in 1851. Two years later he married Lydia Spriggs, a member of a Quaker family, and had two daughters. The younger, Hester, became his biographer. Hester became a writer and, in 1902, married Henry Forbes Julian, a mining engineer, founder of the Royal Automobile Club
Royal Automobile Club
The Royal Automobile Club is a private club and is not to be confused with RAC plc, a motorists' organisation, which it formerly owned.It has two club houses, one in London at 89-91 Pall Mall, and the other in the countryside at Woodcote Park, Surrey, next to the City of London Freemen's School...
and co-writer of Cyaniding Gold and Silver Ores. Juian went down with the Titanic.
Contributions to science
Pengelly's most significant contribution to science was his work on caves in Devon and their human occupation. He excavated at Kents Cavern in DevonDevon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
following earlier work done by Father John MacEnery. He found similar evidence (Palaeolithic flint tools and the bones of extinct animals in the same strata
Stratum
In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...
) as MacEnery, but had the advantage working in a time of more open geological and religious thinking, which enabled him to find support and funding for the publication of his and MacEnery's work.
Pengelly found similar evidence in other caves, and under the auspices 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"...
and the Geological Society
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 and Sir John Evans
John Evans (archaeologist)
Sir John Evans, KCB, FRS was an English archaeologist and geologist.-Biography:John Evans was the son of the Rev. Dr A. B. Evans, headmaster of Market Bosworth Grammar School, and was born at Britwell Court, Buckinghamshire...
were able to conduct a scientific investigation into British prehistory. Their work, along with that of pioneers such as Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes
Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes
Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes , sometimes referred to as Boucher de Perthes, was a French archaeologist and antiquary notable for his discovery, in about 1830, of flint tools in the gravels of the Somme valley....
, produced reasoned argument against the traditional Biblical chronology.