210 WILLIAM SMITH : HIS MAPS AXD MEMOIRS 
Joseph Brogden Baker was originally a chemist on the Cliff at 
Scarborough, and then resided in a house in Bar Street, which had a 
garden extending to the ClifE. His wife was a naember of the well known 
Kowntree family, and living members of that family well remember 
both Baker and his wife, whom they frequently visited at Throxenby. 
where he lived later in life, and there carried on the business of a 
Farmer. He was a big, burly man, well known in Scarborough, and 
was in the habit of giving gratuitous lectures on various subjects 
at the Mechanics' Institution and other places. He was regarded 
as an eccentric man. 
Probably the G. Baker,* the " Historian of Northamptonshire," 
at whose house Smith died, was a relative of the J. B. Baker, the author 
of the " History of Scarborough." 
In the Geological Magazine for February, 1892, we learn that " a 
monument has jast been erected by the Earl of Ducie, F. R. S., F. G. S., 
to the memory of William Smith, at Churchill, Oxfordshire, where he 
was born ; a village already famous as the birthplace of Warren Hastings. 
The monument is formed of huge Oolitic ragstones of the district, 
similar to the Rollright stones. The name ' Oolite ' was given by 
William Smith to the rocks of the formation of which the higher grounds 
in the locality are a part. It is a monolith standing on a double base. 
The lower base is 10 J feet square, and 3 J feet high, the upper one is 6 J 
feet square, and 2J feet high. The monolith stands 9 feet high above 
the upper base, and is about 3 feet square. A marble slab is inserted in 
the side facing the road from Chipping Norton, and bears this in- 
scription : — ' In Memory of William Smith, "The Father of British 
Geology " ; born at Churchill, March 23rd., 1769 ; Died at Northamp- 
ton, August 28, 1839. Erected by the Earl of Ducie, 1891." ' 
A reproduction of a photograph of the monument is given in the 
Geological Magazine, 1892, p. 96. Through the kindness of Dr. Henry 
AYoodward, the block is reproduced herewith (pi. XXIV.): 
During the meeting of the British Association at Bath in 1888, a 
committee of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club was 
appointed, with the Eev. H. H. Winwood as Secretary, for the purpose 
of tableting the house where William Smith resided longest. After 
every possible enquiry was made, the uncertainty as regards any house 
* He died a bachelor. 
