an English naturalist, antiquarian and geologist, and founder by bequest of the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology at Cambridge University. Though a leading supporter of the importance of observation and experiment in what we now call science, few of his theories have survived. While still a student he became interested in botany and natural history, and during visits to Gloucestershire his attention was attracted by the fossils found there; and he began to form the great collection for which he is known.
