ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXV 



William Daniel Conybeare : he was born in June 1787, and in due 

 time sent to Westminster School, where he received his early edu- 

 cation. From Westminster he proceeded to Oxford, and entered 

 Christ Church in the same year as his fellow collegian Sir Robert Peel, 

 taking a first class in classics, in which he was classed with bir 

 Robert, and a second class in mathematics, in which he was classed 

 with Archbishop Whately. Until he took his M.A. degree, he 

 continued to reside at the University, pursuing various studies and 

 assisting by his exertions to lay the foundation of Geology, which 

 was then only a rising science. At the early portion of the present 

 century, an indifference, such as we can now scarcely understand as 

 to the cultivation of the natural sciences prevailed at Oxford; but, 

 in the midst of the consequent general neglect, a small band of indi- 

 viduals, residents of the University, were united m the effort to 

 keep alive a taste for at least one branch of natural science, and 

 succeeded in enlisting others in its cause. 



The first lectures given at Oxford on Mineralogy, which was then 

 as a study not accurately distinguished from Geology, were, it is 

 believed, those delivered by Sir Christopher Pegge, then Regius Pro- 

 fessor of Medicine ; and although it may not be possible, either from 

 written records or from the personal testimony of any one now- 

 living, to form an accurate opinion of the merits of those lectures, it 

 may be fairly assumed that they were not destitute of attractiveness, 

 as the same individual delivered long afterwards lectures on Anatomy, 

 remarkable for an elegance and a fluency of diction which have 

 caused them to continue fresh in the recollection of many, &r 

 Christopher Pegge was succeeded by Dr. Kidd, who for several years 

 gave courses of lectures at Oxford on both the allied sciences, Mine- 

 ralogy and Geology, and collected around him a knot of persons 

 interested in similar pursuits, who formed themselves into a little 

 club of Oxford Geologists. This club included amongst its mem- 

 bers the late Dr. Buckland, the two brothers Conybeare, the late 

 Rev. Philip Serle, of Trinity CoUege, afterwards Rector of Adding- 

 ton, Oxford, and many others, who, though less vigorously devoting 

 themselves to geological research, were still, from their _ eminent 

 qualities and high character, most instrumental in keeping alive 

 the growing interest for the new science, and in raising the cha- 

 racter of the club so high, that some of the early members of the 

 Geological Society of London, then in its infancy, amongst whom 

 were the late Mr. Greenough and the present patriarch of our science, 

 Dr. Fitton, were in the habit of paying an annual visit in Whitsun- 

 week to the University, in order to explore, under the guidance of 

 the geologists of Oxford, the physical structure of the rocks in its 

 neighbourhood; whilst, on their part, they thus judiciously enlisted 

 local inquirers in the service of general geology. 



The venerable Principal of Magdalen College, Dr. Macbride, is the 

 only survivor, at Oxford, of this memorable club, and he preserves at 

 an advanced age the vigour of his faculties, and exhibits all his former 

 interest in the progress of learning and of science; but of non-resi- 

 dents, there still survive Archdeacon Hony, now Prebendary of Sarum, 



