William Smith - The Father of English Geology

In the late 18th century William Smith solved one of the great puzzles of the age; how to recognise the sequence of rocks and correlate them across country, on the basis of the fossils they contain. This discovery is the basis of all mineral and oil exploration today.

Smith used two methods to transmit his new knowledge – maps and geological collections. His maps showed the newly ordered rocks as he found them exposed in Britain , with each unit of rock coloured to match its colour in nature (the first was published in 1815). His collection of fossils was ordered according to the layer of rock from which they had been obtained. He also curated other people’s collections using the same method.

The Rotunda Museum, with its fossils displayed in the order of their strata, physically represented Smith’s ideas and is the only building in the world to commemorate his invention of '‘fossil-ordered stratigraphy'’.

Smith had a chequered career. His origins were humble, his work was plagiarised. Financial problems forced him to sell his collection. He spent time in Debtors’ Prison. After his release he visited Yorkshire . His arrival, with his nephew John Phillips, inspired geologically activity on the Yorkshire Coast which culminated, in Scarborough , in the building of the Rotunda Museum.