XXVI PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



and Mr. Philip Duncan, who now resides at Bath : the latter and his 

 brother, Mr. John Grant, were Fellows of New College, were honoured 

 by the degree of D.C.L., and were remarkable, not only for their love 

 of natural history, but for their zealous support of every philan- 

 thropic and scientific object. The Eev. William D. Conybeare was, 

 however, in the first rank of this little body, and stood so high in the 

 estimation of all its members, that Dr. Buckland, when first lecturing 

 as the successor to Dr. Kidd, expressed in the warmest terms his 

 sense of the obligations he owed to him for the information he had 

 imparted on points relating to geology, and his persuasion that it 

 would not have been fitting for him to offer himself to fill the oifice 

 of lecturer on that subject, had Mr. Conybeare been desirous to occupy 

 it. Let me add here, that another equally eminent individual, the 

 founder of the new school of geology at Cambridge, as Dr. Buckland 

 was of that of Oxford, has assured me, with a similar frankness, so 

 characteristic of Professor Sedgwick, that he too looked upon Dean 

 Conybeare as his early master in geology. 



In 1814 Mr. Conybeare married, and retired from the University, 

 the scene of his early triumphs, to undertake the quiet work of a 

 country curacy, and nine years afterwards removed to the vicarage 

 of Sully in Glamorganshire, on the presentation of the late Evan 

 Thomas, Esq., his brother-in-law ; but, whilst holding the curacy of 

 Banbury and Lectureship of Brislington, near Bristol, he had been 

 mainly instrumental, in conjunction with Sir Henry Delabeche, in 

 founding the Bristol Philosophical Institution and Museum, and it 

 was at that time he received a visit from the great French geologists, 

 M. Elie de Beaumont and M. Dufrenoy, who came for the purpose 

 of acquiring a knowledge of the secondary rocks of England, as a 

 standard of reference for those of France; and he so impressed them, 

 whilst acting as their companion and guide in an exploration of the 

 neighbourhood, with a deep sense of his geological knowledge, that 

 they were prepared on their return to cooperate with Cuvier in ob- 

 taining the election of Mr. Conybeare as a corresponding member of 

 the Institute, for Geology. Nor must it be supposed that this excel- 

 lent man neglected his sacred duties whilst storing his mind with 

 the richest treasures of geological research, as it was during his resi- 

 dence at Sully that he delivered, gratuitously, at the request of his 

 friend Dr. Prichard, a course of theological lectures at Bristol College, 

 of which institution he had become a visitor. 



In 1836 he left Sully and went to Devonshire, having presented 

 himself to his family living of Axminster, and, whilst there, preached, 

 at the request of the authorities of the University of Oxford, the 

 Bampton Lecture for 1839. The living of Axminster he resigned 

 after a few years, on being called by his friend Bishop Copleston to 

 the care of the Cathedral of Llandaff. Here he continued zealously 

 to carry on the good work of restoration which had been com- 

 menced by his predecessor Dean Bruce Knight ; and, as at all times 

 in his life, was ever ready to distribute the rich and varied stores of 

 his mind for the benefit of his fellow-men, in whatsoever station of 

 life they might have been. This venerable, much-loved man, and 



