PEACH, CHARLES WILLIAM (1800-1886)

This article appears in Volume V21, Page 18 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PAS-PER

PEACH, CHARLES WILLIAM (1800-1886) , British naturalist and geologist, was born on the 3oth of September 1800 at Wansford in

Northamptonshire

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

; his father at the time was a saddler and harness-maker, and afterwards became an innkeeper farming about 8o acres of land. He received an elementary education at Wansford and at Folkingham in Lincolnshire; and assisted for several years in the inn and farm. In 1824 he was appointed riding officer in the Revenue

Coast

COAST (from Lat. costa, a rib, side)

-guard at Weybourn in Norfolk. Sea-weeds and other marine organisms now attracted his attention, and these he zealously collected. His duties during the next few years led him to remove successively to Sheringham, Hasboro (Happisburgh), Cromer and Cley, all in Norfolk. In the course of his rambles he met the Rev. James Layton, curate at Catfield, who lent him books and assisted in laying the foundations of accurate knowledge. About the year 1830 he was transferred to Charmouth in Dorset, thence to Beer, and Paignton in Devon, and to Gorran Haven near Mevagissey in

Cornwall

CORNWALL

. Here he continued to pursue his zoological studies
4 This is an amended edition of that of 1899.
' This was practically a re-enactment of that of 1899.
' This has since been done to a large extent by the Conference of London (1908-1909). See BLOCKADE, CONTRABAND, INTERNATIONAL LAW PEACE.
and supplied many specimens to G. Johnston, who was then preparing his History of the British Zoophytes (1838). It was here too that he first found fossils in some of the older rocks previously regarded as unfossiliferousthe discovery of which proved the presence of

Bala

BALA

Beds (Ordovician or Lower

Silurian

SILURIAN

) in the neighbourhood of Gorran Haven. In 1841 he read a

paper

PAPER
PAPER (Fr. papier, from Lat. papyrus)

before the British Association at Plymouth " On the Fossil Organic Remains found on the

south

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

east

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

coast

COAST (from Lat. costa, a rib, side)

Cornwall

CORNWALL

," and in 1843 he brought before the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall an account of his discovery of fish remains in the Devonian slates near Polperro. Peach was transferred for a time to Fowey; and in 1849 to

Scotland

, first to Peterhead and then to Wick (1853), where he made acquaintance with Robert Dick of Thurso. He collected the old red Sandstone fishes; and during a sojourn at Durness he first found fossils in the Cambrian limestone (18J4). Peach retired from the government service in 1861, and died at Edinburgh on the 28th of February 1886.
Biographical notice, with portrait, in S. Smiles's Robert Dick, Baker, of Thurso, Geologist and Botanist (1878).

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