THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE III. VOL. VIII. 



No. I.— JANUARY, 1891. 



cdzrxGtXjstj^Xj jLiamoLiEis. 



L — A Geologist of a Century Ago : 



Samuel Woodward of Norwich, Antiquary and Geologist.^ 



(With a Portrait.) 



GEOLOGISTS are so accustomed to deal with vast periods of 

 time, that a century may be deemed by them as equivalent to 

 the moment-measure of the dial, or the sand-grains of the hour-glass. 



Nevertheless a century, in human affairs, especially that just 

 expiring, has for us a vastly wider significance, and although its 

 passage may not have seen the birth, it has witnessed all the growth 

 and development of Geological science, and a large proportion of 

 that of her sisters also. It cannot be without interest, therefore, 

 briefly to record in these pages the name of one who, although 

 born a hundred years ago, with but scanty opportunities either of 

 position or education to assist him, yet by sheer force of energy and 

 perseverance, and attracted by a strong love of Nature, became 

 a geologist of no mean merit, and left behind him a name honoured 

 by those who knew him, and a record of work accomplished, worthy 

 to fill a much longer life. 



Samuel Woodward was born at Norwich, on the 3rd October, 

 1790. His grandfather, Simon Woodward, came from London to 

 settle in Norwich, where he married and left two children, the 

 younger of whom, William, born in 1762, married, in 1789, to 

 Elizabeth Springall, and died in 1795, at the early age of 33 years. 

 He left a widow and two children, the elder of whom was Samuel 

 Woodward, the subject of the present Memoir. His father died 

 before he was five years old, and after attending a day-school for 

 a short time, he was placed under the care of a relative who was 

 a shawl-weavex", then one of the staple manufactures of Norwich. 

 So desirous was the boy to learn that he devoted every spare 

 moment to study, and read with eagerness every book which came 

 within his reach. At ten years of age we find him singing, as a 



1 Those who are interested in the story of a Norwich hoy who became a geologist 

 may read the fuller account, of which this is but an abstract, in the Transactions of the 

 Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, vol. ii. pp. 563-593, 1879, by Horace 

 B. Woodward, F.G.S. (grandson of Samuel Woodward), and author of the "Geology 

 of England and Wales," one of the best text-books ever written. The portrait is 

 reproduced by permission from an original sketch, in Indian ink, in the possession 

 of his daughter, Mrs. T. G. Bayfield of Norwich, drawn from life by his eldest son, 

 B. B. Woodward. — Edit. Geol. Mag. 



DECADE III. — VOL. Till. NO. I. 1 



