326 



After leaving Oxford " about 1778 " Richardson took Holy 

 Orders, and I am told had two or three different curacies in 

 succession. In 1796* he was appointed by Joseph Houlton, Esq., 

 to the rectory of Farleigh Huugerford, which he held till his death. 



In 1799 he naentions in a letter " my residence in Bath ;" and a 

 letter dated Feb. 1, 1802, printed in Phillips' memoir of Smith, 

 from Smith to Richardson, is addressed to him at Lisbon Terrace, 

 Bath. Whether he kept up a house in Bath or only occasionally 

 rented lodgings, whether he was generally in Bath or at his 

 rectoiy, are points on which I have no information. 



As mentioned in the introduction the geologist's chief interest 

 in Richardson arises from his connection with Smith. 



From a letter he wrote to Prof. Sedgwick in 1831 which is 

 printed in Prof. Sedgwick's presidential address to the Geological 

 Society for that year, we read his own account of their first 

 meeting. 



"At the annual meeting of the Bath Agricultural Society in 1799 Mr. 

 Smith was introduced to my residence in Bath, when on viewing my collection 

 of fossils, he told me the beds to which they exclusirely belonged, and pointed 

 out some peculiar to each. This, by attending him in the fields, I soon 

 found to be the fact, and also, that they had a general inclination to the south- 

 east, following each other in regular succession. ... . But we were 

 soon much more astonished by proofs of his own collecting, that whatever 

 stratum was found in any part of England, the same remains would be found 

 in it, and no other." 



It appears that it was through Mr. Richardson that Mr. Towu- 

 send was introducad to Mr. Smith, and it was by means of the 

 interest taken by these two clergymen in Smith's Geological work 

 that it was first brought under public notice. The writing qut by 

 Mr. Richardson, at Mr. Townsend's house, of the first table of 

 sti-ata of Bath and neighbourhood has already been aUuded to ia 

 the notice of Mr. Townsend. 



" This connection foi-med at an early stage of Mr. Smith's inquiries was 

 what afforded a most lively gratification to the one, and was of no inconsider- 



* "Gent. Mag." Obit. Notice. — "The Rev. Benjamin Richardson, Rector 

 of Hungerford Farleigh, Somerset, to which he was presented in 1796 by 

 Joseph Houlton, Esq." 



