SMITH, WILLIAM (b. Churchill, Oxfordshire, England, 23 March 1769; d. Northampton, England, 28 August 1839), geology.

Smith's major achievements were (1) the recognition of a regular succession in the strata of England, first confirmed in the southwest and then established across most of the country; (2) the discovery that many individual beds have a characteristic fossil content that can be used to distinguish them from other beds that are lithologically similar; and (3) the utilization of these two discoveries in the preparation of a large-scale geological map of the whole country. Since this map was Smith's first geological publication, it is necessary to make clear how his discoveries became known long before its publication in 1815.

The earliest extant list of English strata prepared by Smith was written in 1797; more than twenty different strata from Chalk (Cretaceous) down to the Coal Measures and the limestone (Carboniferous) beneath them are briefly described, but no reference is made to fossils. His next list, dictated to Richardson and Townsend in June 1799, enumerated the strata around Bath, their particular characteristics, and the fossils found in certain beds. Twenty-three different beds are named, from Chalk to Coal; and in most cases the thickness of each, as then known to Smith, is given. Under the heading “Fossils, petrifactions, &c., &c.” are listed the fossils found in ten of the named beds. Their names were provided mostly by the two clergymen. Besides the general terms ammonite, belemnite, and gryphite, more specific ones - high-waved cockle, prickly cockle, and large Scollop - are also given. These details were written down in tabular form by Richardson, and copies were made. Although the table was not printed until 1815, when it was inserted in a memoir accompanying the map, it is certain that manuscript copies were in circulation within a year or so, at first apparently unknown to Smith himself. To whom copies were distributed is not known, although in 1831 Richardson stated that he “without reserve gave a card of the English strata to Baron Rosencrantz, Dr Muller of Christiana, and many others, in the year 1801” (Proceedings of the Geological Society, 1 [1834], 276).

The first printed account of Smith's order of strata and of the fossils contained in different beds was published in the Reverend Richard Warner's History of Bath (Bath, 1801). Although brief and incomplete - and clearly not fully understood by Warner himself - on account of the date of publication it is of considerable significance. Warner, a Bath curate and also a well-known author, lived at Widcombe Cottage, situated between Bath and the Coal Canal. He was acquainted with Smith, who examined Warner's collection of fossils and arranged them stratigraphically. In the History of Bath, a short chapter (pp. 394 - 399) is entitled “Mineralogy and Fossilogy of Bath”; in this Warner stated that he would give a general view of the strata and their “fossilogical contents” and that a “more scientific and particular account” would soon be given in a work written by “the very ingenious Mr. Smith, of Midford, near Bath. . . .” Warner then briefly described the principal strata found near Bath, the “Forest Marble,” the Bath freestone (Upper Oolite), the fuller's-earth beds, the lower freestone (Inferior Oolite), the sands and marls beneath it, and the Lias. Each description included the names (in a far more detailed form than in Smith's 1799 list) of the fossils associated with the particular bed. This account seems to be the first printed description of a succession of different strata accompanied by details of their fossil content, and it was certainly derived from Smith. The account could have been read by many visitors to Bath, where there were several subscription libraries.

After 1800 Smith's knowledge of the English strata and its fossils was made known to others by Richardson (whose rectory near Bath was frequented by many persons interested in geology); by Farey, who from 1806 published references to Smith and his discoveries; and by Townsend, who published The Character of Moses Established for Veracity as an Historian (Bath, 1813). Although this title appears to have little connection with geology, the book contains a detailed account of the English strata from Chalk to Carboniferous Limestone, with plates illustrating the fossils from different formations. Townsend readily acknowledged his debt to Smith and used a number of Smith's names for different strata, names designated “uncouth” by geologists of the Wernerian school but still familiar to every English geologist.

In 1822, W. D. Conybeare and W. Phillips wrote that Smith “had freely communicated the information he possessed in many quarters, till in fact it became by oral diffusion the common property of a large body of English geologists, and thus contributed to the progress of the science in many quarters where the author was little known” (Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales [London, 1822], xlv).

Smith's great work, Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales With Part of Scotland, was undoubtedly a major cartographic and scientific