Early Life and Career as Soldier

William Lonsdale was born in Bath on 9 September 1794. He was educated for the military and served in the Kings Own Regiment from 1810 to 1815. He fought in the Napoleonic Wars at the battles of Salamanca (1812) and Waterloo (1815), for both of which he received medals. Having reached the rank of lieutenant, he retired on half-pay in 1815.

Work on coral fossils

Lonsdale had developed an interest in natural history and he became a geologist. Now residing at Batheaston, he collected a series of rocks and fossils which he presented to the Bath Literary and Scientific Institution, becoming its curator in 1825. The fossils he collected were preserved in the Institution’s museum. In 1829 Lonsdale published the results of s survey begun two years earlier on the oolitic strata - rocks composed of rounded particles resembling fish egg - of Bath. (He later carried out a survey of the oolitic strata of Gloucestershire.)

Curator of Geological Society

On the strength of this work Lonsdale was appointed to the joint post of curator and librarian of the Geological Society in London in 1829. He catalogued the Society’s rapidly growing collection. He established a reputation as the country’s highest authority on the study of corals. In 1837 he suggested from a study of fossils from the South Devon limestones that they were of an age intermediate between the widely accepted Carboniferous and Silurian periods. This suggestion was adopted by the British geologists Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Impey Murchison, so that the period between those two systems (359-416 million years old) became known as the Devonian period, with the rocks described as the Devonian system.

In 1838 Lonsdale’s responsibilities at the Geological Society increased to include the role of assistant secretary. He edited the society journal and kept its accounts. This resulted in him over-working and a decline in his health which led him to retire from the Society in 1842.

Later Life

Lonsdale, who never married, moved back to the West Country and following a long retirement died in Bristol on 11 November 1871. But his work was not forgotten. In 1846 he won the Wollaston Medal, the highest award of the Geological Society, for his research on coral fossils. He will forever be associated with the discovery of the Devonian period as a distinct and important age in the earth’s development. We know that Charles Darwin regarded him highly. When Darwin was ill in 1844 and thought he might die, he wrote a letter to his wife Emma naming Lonsdale as one of the editors he would like to present his then unpublished work on evolution and natural selection to the public.

Grave

Lonsdale is buried in a grave on the eastern edge of the cemetery not far from the Anglican chapel. Ironically, it his prowess as a soldier rather than a geologist which is remembered on his monument.