William Smith is a man to be admired! A man who spent a large portion of his life thanklessly beavering away at something no one else had ever thought about. He is now recognised as the father of geology but it was certainly a struggle for him to gain recognition for his life's work when he was alive. It was not until late in his life that he was awarded any accolades at all - he was the first person to be awarded the Wollaston medal, with the words below.
If, in the pride of our present strength, we were disposed to forget our origin, our very speech betrays us: for we use the language which he taught us in the infancy of our science. If we, by our united efforts, are chiselling the ornaments and slowly raising up the pinnacles of one of the temples of nature, it was he that gave the plan, and laid the foundations, and erected a portion of the solid walls, by the unassisted labour of his hands.
To even begin to appreciate the achievements of this man it is pertinent to set the scene of the era to which he was born and grew up.
Smith was born in England in 1769. England at this time was still deeply immeshed in a religious domination that had been going on for 1000 years. The church was the boss of everything and ruled with fear and keeping people ignorant. The printed word was not common - although printing was possible, it was controlled by the church and people with money (usually one in the same) and anyway, reading was frowned upon if you were not associated with the church.
Understanding and interpreting the world around you was done through the thick veil of religious dogma. Everything that you might ponder or wonder about the natural world was spun to prove the existence of God ("You found something on the ground in the middle of England that looks like it's from the sea? Well of course! There was the biblical flood and Noah build the ark, see! proof!!")
The words limestone or basalt weren't invented, let alone the term "geology".
Your status in the world was determined by heredity - not by accomplishment or even economic standing.
In cities, legislation designated what dress different urban groups should wear so as to keep them separate.
Slavery was yet to be abolished as was the whipping of females for punishment. Public executions were still "entertainment".
The Napoleonic Wars had not yet occurred. The bank of England had not yet printed the first pound note. Captain Cook had not yet discovered Hawaii. The First Fleet had not set sail.
85% of the population were peasants and small pox was prevalent.
America was fighting for independence.
Mozart was alive and for the upper classes clothes kinda looked like this.
It was into this world, where these things were soon to happen, that William Smith was born. His father died when he was young and his mother gave him up as an orphan for his uncle to raise. He developed a curiousity for stones. He did ok at schol but there was not enough money for him to go to university.
As the Industrial Revolutions started to kick in there began to be a focus on coal and coal production. Canals began to be built to transport coal. These actually turned into a vast network through England - a barge pulled by one horse up a canal could tow as much coal as 400 horses with out a canal.
Smith happened to meet a surveyor when he was quite young and the surveyor took him on, interested in a few of Smith's observations about rocks. Smith became a very good surveyor and began to gather fossils and much observed data about the rocks and land he saw in his travels. He began to develop theories about layers of rock and types of rock and fossils that were very much heresy in the times he lived in. At this time scientific thought was very much in conflict wiht the church and science views not discussed but didn't matter though as he was the ONLY person at this time that had any thoughts remotely like this and he had no one to talk to that was even interested in these concepts and ideas about the land around him.
(Perhaps, like me, you can appreciate the amazing nature of him even having thought to think the thoughts he thought!)
As Smith was a great surveyor he was appointed to survey for coal production and canal production and was ecstatic as this gave him the very opporuntity he desired - to be paid to collect data on layers of rock, types of rock, fossils - all the things to help him with what he knew to be his life's work. Making a map of rock types in Britain.
Remember, this was a time when the printed word was rare... maps could not be printed. They were carved on lithographic plates (his map - which would not be completed into well into the 1800s would eventually be individually coloured by hand - although he had no concept of the idea of using colour then - he did not come across the idea of colour until much later when he saw a rare map, which had colours representing different breeds of pig in England!)
Smith began to earn a great wage and I have to say, the only thing really against him is the fact he made poor financial choices.
He bought a big house and a large property for 1600£ and you can imagine how vast that must have been 200 years ago...
Things went very well for him for a number of years and he travelled and travelled around England gathering data and fossils (7000 individual specimens) until a dispute with the canal company who wanted to put a canal route through his property, prompted him to be fired. Immediate loss of income.
Smith carried on (somehow!) funding his own travel and working on the map.
He had many sets backs. A sick wife with mental health issues, a nephew he adopted (more strain on his finances), a burnt down flat, and expensive rent in London to be close to the printer, a friend taking his map of Bath and printing it with no credit to Smith himself and the sale of his extensive fossil collection to the London Museum to cover some costs (the fossil collection was the backbone and evidence supprting his method of classifying and comparing different kinds of rock - a revolution in it's own right and something he is most famously remembered for developing.)
Probably the worst of all was that when the term Geology was finally invented and a number a rich fellows created the Royal Geology Society in London - they excluded him (the first and only real geologist that existed) from being a member because of his class. And after struggling for a futher 14 years under his own steam to create the map (which was to be 7 feet tall as it was of a scale never made before - 5miles to the inch) the president of said society went to see Smith under the guise of being a sponsor, to look at the work to see if it had any worth, then went back to London with a wad of money and paid the printer to give him every one of the 16 map plates that made up the map and published it and sold it AS HIS OWN (plagerism was also not invented it seems).
So, his life's work, his hardship and struggles worth of beautiful amazing geological map did not sell once published (and publishing it was a very expensive business). Smith was broke. He was bankrupt. He then spent time in debtors prison and was released to find all his worldly goods gone.
He moved to Yorkshire then, and because he was such a great surveyor he was able to make a living.
It was then that one of the gentlemen he did work for, a member, coincidentally, of the Geological society (which in the intervening period had become a bit less about money and a bit more about actual science) recognised him as the man that had really created the map claimed by the president of the society. Finally Smith began to get the recognition he deserved.
And apparently he died a happy man at 70.
Here is his map...
Please remember again the times into which he was born, the hardships he faced as a child, the lack of formal education and his inability to read or write very well. Remember that he had no collegues with which to discuss and refine his ideas and extensively the terms for which we easily label the things he was first to notice now , were not invented then.
Also pay heed to the fact that his methods, his classification strategies for using fossil differences to identify and compare rock and his mapping colour scheme are the precise ones we use today to make an equally detailed map with the benefit of the combined knowledge of about 6000 professionally educated and experienced people, satelite and computer technology and the basic methods William Smith developed literally from scratch on his own at a time when not only had no other person even concieve a notion like it, but it was basically heresy to do so.
I hope you will join me in being pretty darn impressed with this man and value his persistence and ability to stick by his "crazy notions" alone and without support and see them to fruition - not to mention the kind of mind that would come up with the things he came up with when he came up with them!
*giggles* ok.. it's really late here, cut me some slack!!
For comparison.. here's a modern one.
More on Smith
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