Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 60.djvu/578

 WILLIAM CRAWFORD WILLIAMSON was born at Scarborough, on November 24, 1816. His father, John Williamson, who began life as a gardener, was a man of considerable scientific attainments, and was, for twenty-seven years, curator of the Scarborough Musenm From him his son early acquired a practical knowledge of geology and natural history. Williamson, in his recently published auto- biography, describes how, when a boy, his evenings, throughout a long winter, were devoted to naming fossil specimens from the neighbouring coast, with the aid of Phillips' 'Geology of Yorkshire.' "Pursuing," he says, "this uncongenial labour, gave me in my thirteenth year a thorough practical familiarity with the paleonto- ogical treassures of Eastern Yorkshire. This early acquisition happily moulded the entire course of my future life."

Williamson in those early days came into contact with several distinguished men of science, and, notably, with William Smith, the father of English geology, who spent two years in the Williamsons' house.

A little later, in 1832, he made the acqnaintance of Murchison, who was already a friend of his father's, and from whom the younger Williamson received great kindness.

Williamson early adopted the medical profession, and during his apprenticeship to a Scarborough apothecary, found time to carry on his work in natural history, spending his holidays in shooting rare birds, and collecting plants and fossils. He wrote a paper on rare Yorkshire birds, when only about 16, and almost immediately afterwards he made his first contributions to fossil botany, drawing and describing many of the specimens for Lindley and Hutton's ’Fossil Flora of Great Britain.’ More than thirty of the plates in this well-known book bear his name.

A paper on the distribution of organic remains in the Lias series of Yorkshire was read before the Geological Society of London, on May 9, 1834, when the author had only attained the age of 173, and another in November, 1836, on the Oolitic fossils of the same coast These were remarkable contributions to science in themselves, and the more so as coming from so young a worker; few naturalists can have started serious investigation so early in life.

Before he was 18, Williamson appeared as an author on a very different subject, for, in 1834, he published an account of the excavation of a tumulus at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough. This, which was probably his only archeological publication, was important in its effect on his scientific career, inasmuch as it brought the young naturalist into communication with the distinguished geologist, Dr Buckland. Throngh his influence, this paper was reproduced in the

Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist,' by W. C. Williamson, Redway, 1896