WILLIAM SMITH : HIS MAPS AND MEMOIRS 
79 
INTRODUCTION. 
There are many memoirs dealing with William Smith ; the earliest 
by his nephew, John Phillips, being published in 1844. More recently 
Dr. Henry Woodward, the late Prof. J. W. Judd, and others, have 
referred to his life and his maps. Smith's work has, naturally, had a 
considerable effect on the progress of Yorkshire geology, especially as 
his nephew and pupil, Phillips, received from him his early inspiration 
and training. 
William Smith was born at Churchill in Oxfordshire in 1769, and 
died at Northampton, while on bis way to the British Association 
meeting at Birmingham in 1839, when he had reached his three score 
years and ten. 
Of the value of his pioneer work in identifying strata by means 
of their contained fossils, and in geological mapping, the scientific 
world well knows. At present it is proposed to refer more particularly 
to his maps and memoirs, and especially with regard to those referring 
to Yorkshire. 
Smith spent some of his later years in our county. He lectured at 
York, Hull, Sheffield, Leeds and Scarborough. It was on our coast at 
Scarborough in 1826, that he first made the acquaintance of Roderick 
Murchison. In 1828 he was appointed Resident Land Steward to Sir 
John V. B. Johnstone, Bart. , of Hackness, and he there made a map 
of the Hackness estate. From a plan in my possession it is also appar- 
ent that in 1819 Smith was engaged in connection with a " Proposed 
Aire and Dunn Canal to drain the contiguous Lands," etc. 
In 1815 Smith purchased a property near Bath for the working of 
freestone, but it so happened that he, the one person then able to 
judge of the quantity and quality of stone, was deceived, and he lost 
heavily. His geological collection was sold to the British Museum in 
1816, and two years later they acquired a further collection from 
him.* He received £700 in all from the Museum authorities. 
* Judd states [Geol. Mag., 1898, p. 99.) : — "It originally consisted 
of 2,657 specimens, belonging to 693 species, collected at 263 different 
localities ; and such portions of it as can be identified have been brought 
together and arranged according to William Smith's original plan in 
the British Museum (Natural History) at South Kensington, by the 
pious care of Dr. Henry Woodward.'^ 
