FITTON, WILLIAM HENRY (1780-1861)

This article appears in Volume V10, Page 441 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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FITTON, WILLIAM HENRY (1780-1861) , British geologist was born in Dublin in January 1780. Educated at Trinity College, in that city, he gained the senior scholarship in 1798, and graduated in the following year. At this time he began to take

interest

INTEREST

in geology and to form a collection of fossils. Having adopted the medical profession he proceeded in 18o8 to Edinburgh, where he attended the lectures of Robert Jameson, and thenceforth his

interest

INTEREST

in natural history and especially in geology steadily increased. He removed to London in 1809, where he further studied medicine and chemistry. In 1811 he brought before the Geological Society of London a description of the geological structure of the vicinity of Dublin, with an account of some rare minerals found in Ireland. He took a medical practice at

Northampton

in r812, and for some years the duties of his profession engrossed his time. He was admitted M.D. at

Cambridge

in 1816. In 1820, having married a lady of means, he settled in London, and devoted himself to the science of geology with such assiduity and thoroughness that he soon became a leading authority, and in the end, as Murchison said, " one of the British worthies who have raised modern geology to its present advanced position." His " Observations on some of the Strata between the Chalk and the Oxford Oolite, in the South-

east

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

of England " (Trans. Geol. Soc. ser. 2, vol. iv.) embodied a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of researches extending from 1824 to 1836, and form the classic memoir familiarly known as Fitton's " Strata below the Chalk." In this

great

GREAT

work

WORK

he established the true succession and relations of the Upper and Lower Greensand, and of the

Wealden

WEALDEN

'and Purbeck formations, and elaborated their detailed structure.' He had been elected F.R.S. in 1815, and he was president of the Geological Society of London 1827-1829. His

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

then became a meeting place for scientific workers, and during his presidency he held a conversazione open on Sunday evenings to all fellows of the Geological Society. From 1817 to 1841 he contributed to the Edinburgh Review many admirable essays on the progress of geological science; he also wrote " Notes on the
Progress of Geology in England " for the Philosophical Magazine (1832-1833). His only independent publication, was A Geological Sketch of the Vicinity of Hastings (1833). He was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society in 1852. He died in London on the 13th of May 1861.
Obituary by R. I. Murchison in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xviii., 1862, p. xxx.

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