Born March 23, 1769. Died August 28, 1839.

William Smith, the 'Father of English Geology,' was born at Churchill, a village in Oxfordshire. His father died when he was eight years old, and his mother marrying again, William was brought up under the care of his uncle, to part of whose property he was heir. From this kinsman, who had little sympathy with his nephew's early displayed taste for collecting specimens of the various stones in the neighbourhood, young Smith with difficulty obtained money for the purchase of a few books fit to instruct a boy in the rudiments of geometry and surveying. He, however, continued to prosecute these studies without instruction or sympathy, but still with ardour and success until the year 1787, when, having attained the age of eighteen, and being tolerably versed in the geometry and calculations at that time thought sufficient for engineers and surveyors, he became assistant to Mr. Edward Webb, of Stow-on-the-Wold, who had been appointed to make a complete survey of the parish of Churchill. Being speedily entrusted with the management of all the ordinary business of a surveyor, Mr. Smith traversed in continual activity the counties of Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire, carefully noticing all the varieties of soil over which he passed, and comparing them with the general aspect and character of the country. Between the years 1791 and 1793, he also made minute subterraneous surveys of the High Littleton collieries, which afforded him an opportunity of confirming views previously conceived as to the regularity in formation of the different strata composing the earth's crust. At this period the services of civil engineers were in great request, and the duties entrusted to them were such as Mr. Smith was well qualified to perform. Several gentlemen in the neighbourhood interested themselves in forwarding his professional career, and he obtained an engagement to make surveys and levels for a proposed line of canal in Somersetshire. In the course of these operations, Smith discovered that the strata lying above coal were not laid horizontally, but inclined in one direction—viz., to the eastward; resembling on a large scale the ordinary appearance of superposed slices of bread and butter. This fact he had previously imagined to be the case, and it was now proved to be true.

In 1794 the Canal Bill on which he was engaged received the sanction of Parliament, and one of the first steps taken by the committee of management was to depute two of their members to accompany Mr. Smith, their engineer, on a tour of investigation as to the construction and management of other navigations in England and Wales. This journey extended altogether through 900 miles of country, and occupied the space of one or two months; the party reached Newcastle by one route, and returned by another, through Shropshire and Wales to Bath. During the whole tour Mr. Smith seized every opportunity of observing all local peculiarities as to the aspect and structure of the country passed through, and was able to verify on a large scale his pre-conceived generalizations regarding a settled order of succession, continuity of range at the surface, and general declination eastward of the different strata. During the next six years he was engaged in setting out and superintending the works on the Somersetshire coal canal; being able, from the knowledge he had acquired, to inform the contractors what would be the nature of the ground to be cut through, and what parts of the canal would require particular care to be kept water-tight. He also discovered, during the formation of this work, that each stratum contained organised fossils peculiar to itself, by examination of which, it might in cases otherwise doubtful be recognised and discriminated from others like it, but in a different part of the series. This fact was subsequently still further investigated by him, and he proved that whatever stratum was found in any part of England, the same remains would be found in it and no other.

Mr. Smith was now (1795) twenty-six years old, and at this period removed from the village of High Littleton to Bath, in the vicinity of which city he shortly afterwards purchased a small but beautiful estate. In the following year he first contemplated publishing his discoveries in geology, but it was not until the year 1799, after his engagement with the Coal Canal Company had ceased, that he made public his intention of publishing a work on the Stratification of Britain, and prosecuting an actual survey of the Geological structure of England and Wales. About this time he became acquainted with the Rev. Benjamin Richardson and the Rev. Jos. Townsend, two gentlemen thoroughly competent to estimate the truth and value of his views, and who, in conjunction with him, drew up a tabular statement of the order of the strata, with their imbedded organic remains, in the vicinity of Bath. Copies of this document were extensively distributed, and it remained for a long period the type and authority for the descriptions and order of the superposition of the strata near Bath. The original document, in Mr. Richardson's handwriting, drawn up from Smith's dictation, was presented to the Geological Society in 1831. Mr. Smith now turned all his energies to the prosecution of his profession, and the tracing out the courses of the strata through districts as remote from Bath as his means would permit. In 1799 an unusual amount of rain prevailed, producing in the neighbourhood of Bath an extraordinary phenomenon. Vast mounds of earth, displaced by the augmented force of the springs and the direction of water into new channels below the surface, were sliding down the sides of the hills, bearing away with them houses, trees, lawns, and fields. To remedy such disasters and prevent their recurrence was exactly what Smith had learnt from Geology, and many operations of this kind were placed under his care and successfully accomplished. His reputation for success in draining on new principles became established, carrying him into Gloucestershire, the Isle of Purbeck, Wiltshire, &c., and for the next few years he was almost daily occupied in various parts of the country, first in draining land, and secondly in irrigating it when drained. In 1801 he accomplished the effectual drainage of Prisley Bog, a work which had often been attempted before, but without success. Mr. Smith thoroughly deprived the bog of its stagnant water, and converted this hitherto worthless waste into valuable meadows, by conducting a running stream over its surface. For the performance of this undertaking he received in 1805 the medal of the Society of Arts. Another great work, on which he was engaged more or less during the space of nine years (1800-1809), was the draining of the marsh lands in East Norfolk, between Yarmouth and Happisburgh. These lands were continually liable to be flooded by inundations from the German Ocean, which poured in through breaches in the sand-hills lining the coast, and forming a natural barrier against these inroads. Mr. Smith at once saw that the first thing to be done, to prove an effectual remedy, must be the stopping out the sea from the whole region of marsh land. This he accomplished by filling up the vast breaches (amounting altogether to one mile in length) with artificial embankments made of pebbles and sand as like as possible to the natural barriers thrown up by the sea. This simple and effective plan, requiring almost nothing but labour for its accomplishment, entirely succeeded; and the sea now being effectually kept out, he was able to suggest to the proprietors proper methods for draining and improving the marshes.

In 1806 Mr. Smith's first published work appeared, being entitled, 'A Treatise on the Construction and Management of Watermeadows.' Several years previous to this he had been repeatedly urged by his friends (among whom he now counted Francis, Duke of Bedford, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Crawshaw, Thomas W. Coke, of Norfolk, and the Rev. B. Richardson, before mentioned) to put in force his intention of publishing his discoveries. Many difficulties had, however, occurred; his means were continually exhausted by his scientific investigations; and an attempt, first made in 1801, to publish by subscription a work on the natural order of the strata of England and Wales, failed, partially from the deaths of his patrons the Duke of Bedford and Mr. Crawshaw, and ultimately from his proposed publisher, Debrett, falling into difficulties.

From this period until late in life, Mr. Smith continued unceasingly his professional occupations. In 1809 he began to execute the Ouse navigation in Sussex; in 1810 he restored the hot springs of Bath, which had failed; in 1811 he examined into the causes of leakage on the Kennet and Avon Canal, and reported on trials for coals in Buckinghamshire; and in 1812-1814 executed the Minsmere drainage in Suffolk. During these and a hundred other engagements of a like nature, which furnished him with the means and occasion for incessant travelling, Mr. Smith lost no opportunity of committing to paper the result of the day's observations on the direction, dip, and aspect of the rocks he passed over during his various journies. In 1812, receiving proposals from Mr. Cary to publish his map of the strata of England and Wales, Mr. Smith recommenced his efforts to produce the great work on which he had been occupied for the space of twenty years. This map was at length published on the 1st of August, 1815, being dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, and he received from the Society of Arts the premium of 50l., which had long been offered for a work of this description. The fame of its author as a great original discoverer in English geology was now secured, but it brought Mr. Smith little pecuniary benefit. Geology had kept him poor all his life by consuming his professional gains; and an unfortunate speculation, which he at this time entered into, entirely failed, and compelled him to sell the property at Bath which he had purchased in 1798. A load of debt still remained to be discharged, and in order to liquidate this he proposed selling the valuable geological collection he had been making during his past life. This collection, of which the number of species was 693, and of specimens 2657, was purchased by Government for the British Museum for a total sum of 700l. In 1818 Mr. Smith's claims on public notice were fairly and fully advocated by Dr. Fitton, and it was chiefly from the favourable light in which this gentleman placed his long and solitary labours, that public interest for him was stimulated, and the Geological Society, who had hitherto passed him over, was at length roused to an impartial estimate of the value of his works. This resulted in the passing of a resolution in February, 1831, "That the first Wollaston medal be given to Mr. William Smith, in consideration of his being a great original discoverer in English Geology; and especially for his having been the first in this country to discover and to teach the identification of strata, and to determine their succession by means of their imbedded fossils." The following year he received from the Crown a pension of 100l. a-year. Previous to this, however, the state of Mr. Smith's finances compelled him to be unceasingly occupied in various professional engagements; and on one of these occasions, being engaged by Colonel Braddyll to make a general mining survey of some estates belonging to that gentleman, he drew the Colonel's attention to the great probability of there being coal at an attainable depth on part of his property situated at Haswell, in Durham. This ultimately led to the foundation of the magnificent works, called the South Hetton Colliery, which rival the greatest establishments of the Lambtons, Vanes, and Russels.

During the last few years of his life Mr. Smith lived principally at Scarborough, where, unfettered by any but temporary engagements, he devoted his mind to a review of the circumstances of his life, and the arrangement of his observations and opinions. In 1835 he received the degree of LL.D., which was conferred on him by the members of Trinity College, Dublin. Between the years 1837 and 1838 he was appointed by Government to join Sir Charles Barry and Sir Henry De la Beche in making a tour through a great part of England and Wales, to select the most suitable stone for building the Houses of Parliament. The stone ultimately selected for this purpose was the firm yellow granular magnesian limestone, of Bolsover Moor, in Derbyshire. This was the last scientific work on which Dr. Smith was engaged; a cold caught the following year brought on diarrhoea, which terminated fatally. He died on the 28th of August, in his seventy-first year, and was buried at Northampton, at the west end of the church of All Saints, in which, at the suggestion of Dr. Buckland, a tablet was erected to his memory, the expense of which was defrayed by a subscription among geologists.—Memoirs of William Smith, LL.D., by his nephew, John Phillips, F.R.S., F.G.S. London, 1844.