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Henry De la Beche

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Sir
Henry De la Beche
KCBFRS
Born(1796-02-10)10 February 1796
Died13 April 1855(1855-04-13)(aged 59)
NationalityEnglish
Known forPaintingDuria Antiquior– A More Ancient Dorset
AwardsWollaston Medal(1855)
Scientific career
FieldsGeology,palaeontology
InstitutionsGeological Survey of Great Britain

Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche[a]KCB,FRS(10 February 1796[1]– 13 April 1855[3]) was an English geologist andpalaeontologist,the firstdirectorof theGeological Survey of Great Britain,who helped pioneer early geological survey methods. He was the first President of thePalaeontographical Society.

Biography[edit]

De la Beche[2]was born in Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, London. He was the only son of Thomas De la Beche (1755–1801) and his wife, Elizabeth. The family name was originally Beach, but his father changed it to create a fictional connection with the medieval Barons De la Beche of Aldworth, Berkshire. His father served as a brevet major (later lieutenant-colonel) in theNorfolk Yeomanry,a regiment offenciblesin theBritish Army,and was aslave ownerwith an estate inJamaica.In 1800 the family travelled to the plantation in Jamaica when Thomas inherited the estate[4]and his father died there in the following year. Mother and son returned to England, having been shipwrecked to the north of San Domingo on their journey.[5]

De la Beche spent his early life living with his mother inLyme Regis,where he acquired a love for geology through his friendship withMary Anning.At the age of fourteen he entered theRoyal Military College,then atGreat MarlowinBuckinghamshire.[3]

The peace of 1815, however, changed his career. At the age of twenty-one De la Beche joined theGeological Society of London.[3]He became an avid fossil collector and illustrator, collaborating withWilliam Conybeareon an important paper onichthyosaurandplesiosauranatomy that was presented before the Society in 1821.[6][7]He continued throughout life to be one of its most active, useful and honoured members, serving as president of the Society from 1848 to 1849. He visited many localities of geological interest, not only in Britain, but also in France, Jamaica andSwitzerland.In Jamaica he stayed on his estate,Halse Hall,Clarendon Parish,in 1823–1824[8]and published his geological account of Jamaica in 1827. Returning to the south-west of England he began the detailed investigation of the rocks ofCornwallandDevon.Contact with the mining community of that part of the country gave him the idea that the nation ought to compile a geological map of the United Kingdom, and collect and preserve specimens to illustrate, and aid in further developing, its mineral industries.[3]

Surveying[edit]

The government then appointed De la Beche to work with theOrdnance Survey.This formed the starting point of theGeological Survey of Great Britain,which was officially recognised in 1835, when De la Beche was appointed as director.[9]As the first director of theMuseum of Practical GeologyinJermyn Street,in 1843 he donated many of his own books to establish the library.[10]

Increasing stores of valuable specimens began to arrive in London; and the building atCraig's Court, off Whitehall,where the youngMuseum of Economic (afterwards Practical) Geologywas placed, became too small. De la Beche appealed to the authorities to provide a larger structure and to widen the whole scope of the scientific establishment of which he was the head.Parliamentsanctioned the erection of a museum in Jermyn Street, London, and the organisation of a staff of professors with laboratories and other appliances. The establishment, in which were combined the offices of the Geological Survey, the Museum of Practical Geology, theRoyal School of Minesand theMining Record Office,was opened in 1851.[3]

An 1834 etching by De la Beche that appears in the beginning of his Researches in Theoretical Geology. A landmark scientific depiction of Earth as seen from space.

Conditions of scientific testing were rudimentary; as part of his colleagueLyon Playfair's investigations into "overflowing privies", Sir Henry De la Beche once took the role of test-vomiter, to judge sewage flow.[11]

In 1830, De la Beche publishedSections and views, illustrative of geological phaenomena,a series of line drawings to encourage more accurate depictions of geological formations. He also published numerous memoirs on English geology in theTransactions of the Geological Society of London,as well as in theMemoirs of the Geological Survey,notably theReport on the Geology of Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset(1839). He likewise wroteA Geological Manual(1831; 3rd ed., 1833); andResearches in Theoretical Geology(1834), in which he enunciated a philosophical treatment of geological questions much in advance of his time. An early volume,How to Observe Geology(1835 and 1836), was rewritten and enlarged by him late in life, and published under the title ofThe Geological Observer(1851; 2nd ed., 1853).

Duria Antiquior– A More Ancient Dorsetis a watercolour painted in 1830 by Henry De la Beche, based on fossils found by Mary Anning

De la Beche was the principal antagonist ofRoderick MurchisonandAdam Sedgwickin what has been labelledThe Great Devonian Controversy.He frequently used cartoons as a tactful way to express his frustrations on this and other issues.[3]

He was elected Fellow of theRoyal Societyin 1819. He was knighted on 13 April 1842 and, near the close of his life he was awarded theWollaston medal.[3]In 1852, he was elected a foreign member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences.[citation needed]

After his death, students at theRoyal College of Minesand other institutions competed for the bursary of the De la Beche medal.[12]The medal was in fact the second imprint, of a medal De la Beche had originally had engraved and struck for the slaves he inherited from his father on the plantation in Jamaica on his return to Lyme Regis in 1825.[13]The second version of the medal, in silver and bronze, was engraved byWilliam Wyonof the Royal Mint – with De la Beche's portrait on one side, and the plantation on the other – the plantation being replaced with crossed hammers for the School of Mines.[citation needed]

In June 2020, the De La Beche Society, a student-run geology society at Imperial College, announced they were distancing themselves from Henry De la Beche because of his legacy as a slave owner. The society was temporarily renamed Imperial College Geology Society pending consultation on a permanent new name.[14]The society was permanently renamed Imperial College Geology Society in September 2020 following a department-wide referendum.[15]

He is buried in theKensal Green Cemetery,London.

Cartoons[edit]

De la Beche's well-known caricature "Awful Changes"

A great supporter of the work and importance of Mary Anning, of Lyme Regis, Henry De la Beche drew a sketch, in 1830, entitledDuria Antiquior– A More Ancient Dorset,which showed Mary Anning's finds: (three types of Ichthyosaur, a Plesiosaur andDimorphodon). It even appears to show the production ofcoprolites,from a terrified plesiosaur. De la Beche assisted Anning, who was having financial difficulties, by having a lithographic print made from his watercolour and donating the proceeds from the sale of the prints to her. This became the first such scene fromdeep timeto be widely circulated.[16]

He was a great and objective scientist and poked fun at some of the more outlandish theories of the time, such as that put forward byCharles Lyell,proposing that geological and biological history were cyclical and that ancient life forms would again walk the earth. His cartoon, also drawn in 1830, was entitledAwful Changesand depicted an ichthyosaur professor lecturing on a fossilised human skull: "'You will at once perceive' continued Professor Ichthyosaurus, 'that the skull before us belonged to some of the lower order of animals; the teeth are very insignificant, the power of the jaws trifling, and altogether it seems wonderful how the creature could have procured food.'"[17]

Family[edit]

He married Letitia Whyte (1801–1844), daughter of Captain Charles Whyte of Loughbrickland, County Down, Ireland in 1817.[18]

They set off on a year-long tour of the continent in 1819. The marriage was not a success and, in 1825, the couple split up with an acrimonious public controversy with Letitia requesting a legal separation on the grounds that "the union proved to be of the most unhappy nature: the treatment which Lady De la Beche received at the hands of her husband being such as to render it impossible for her to live with him."[18]

De la Beche obtained a legal separation and custody of their two daughters in 1826. Letitia moved in with her lover, Major-GeneralHenry Wyndham,son of theearl of Egremont.[5]

Daughter Elizabeth (1819–1866), known as Bessie, marriedLewis Llewelyn Dillwyn,a scientist, industrialist and long-serving Liberal MP forSwanseawho campaigned fordisestablishmentin Wales on 16 August 1838.[19] Elizabeth Llewellyn contributed to the designs of theCambrian Potteryowned by her husband, particularly their Etruscan ware. They had four children, Henry (b. 1843) who became a barrister, and three daughters:Mary De la Beche Nicholl(1839–1922), an alpinist andlepidopterist;Amy Dillwyn(1845–1935), a novelist and industrialist;[20]and Sarah, known as Essie (b. 1852), who became an actress after a divorce.[21]

Elizabeth was the primary legatee in her father's will but he also provided for £3750 in trust for a daughter called Rosalie Torre, born near Taunton in 1834, and £1250 in trust for "my trusty servant" Elizabeth Kendall who was living as a companion with De La Beche and Rosalie at 3 Blandford Place London in 1851.[4]

Honours[edit]

Mount De La Beche from the Tasman Glacier

The following geographic features are named after De la Beche:

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^The British Geological Survey use the form "De la Beche", not "Beche"; so too does the National Museum Wales in its De la Beche archive.[1][2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ab"Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche and the founding of the British Geological Survey".British Geological Survey.Retrieved24 December2014.
  2. ^ab"The De la Beche archive at Amgueddfa Cymru".Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales). Archived fromthe originalon 24 May 2014.Retrieved24 December2014.
  3. ^abcdefgChisholm 1911.
  4. ^ab"Summary of Individual | Legacies of British Slave-ownership".www.ucl.ac.uk.Retrieved16 August2020.
  5. ^abSecord, J. A. (2004)."Beche, Sir Henry Thomas De la (1796–1855), geologist".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1891.Retrieved16 August2020.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  6. ^Rudwick, Martin (2008).Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform.University of Chicago Press. pp. 29–30.ISBN978-0226731292.
  7. ^Beche, Henry De la; Conybeare, William (1821),Notice of the discovery of a new Fossil Animal, forming a link between the Ichthyosaurus and Crocodile, together -with general remarks on the Osteology of the Ichthyosaurus,Geological Society of London, archived fromthe originalon 4 December 2010,retrieved10 January2010
  8. ^Sir Henry Thomas De la Becheby Lawrence J. Chubb accessed 18 July 2010
  9. ^Robert Hunt, Frederick William Rudler,A Descriptive Guide to the Museum of Practical GeologyMuseum of Practical Geology (Great Britain): "The Museum of Practical Geology was founded, in 1835, in consequence of its having become evident, during the earlier progress of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, that numerous opportunities..."
  10. ^Library JournalMelvil Dewey, Richard Rogers Bowker, L. Pylodet – 1879 "... was founded in 1843, the earliest books received being a selection from the private library of the first Director of the Institution, Sir Henry Thomas De la Bache, KCB, FRS."
  11. ^Frankel, Oz (2006).States of inquiry: social investigations and print culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain...JHU Press. p. 156.ISBN978-0801883408."Sir Henry De la Beche was obliged in Bristol to stand at the end of alleys and vomit whilst Dr. Playfair was investigating overflowing privies. Sir Henry was obliged to give it up."
  12. ^Directory Great Britain. Dept. of Science and Art – 1899 "The De la Beche Medal. This bronze medal, established in memory of Sir Henry De la Beche, is awarded annually to the student who does best in Mining"
  13. ^Jamaican rock stars, 1823–1971: the geologists who explored Jamaica p23 S. K. Donovan – 2010 "THE DECADE 1825–1835 De la Beche landed in England early in 1825 and settled again in Lyme Regis. Soon after his return he had a medal struck for the encouragement of his slaves, with his portrait on one side and the words" A reward for good conduct "
  14. ^Halliday (later), Josh; Belam (earlier), Martin; Pidd, Helen (9 June 2020)."UK protests: statue of 18th-century slave owner Robert Milligan taken down in London — as it happened".The Guardian.ISSN0261-3077.Retrieved1 July2020.
  15. ^Carter, Chris."Renaming the Departmental Society for Geology".Imperial College Union.Retrieved17 November2022.
  16. ^Rudwick, Martin (1992).Scenes from Deep Time...University of Chicago Press. pp. 42–47.ISBN978-0226731049.
  17. ^Gould, Stephen Jay (1988).Time's arrow, time's cycle: myth and metaphor in the discovery of geological time.Penguin Books.ISBN0140228195.
  18. ^ab"The Geological Society of London - Distant Thunder – Ladies' Man".geolsoc.org.uk.Retrieved16 August2020.
  19. ^Painting, David (2004)."Dillwyn, Lewis Llewelyn (1814–1892), industrialist and politician".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/47114.Retrieved16 August2020.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  20. ^Painting, David (2004)."Dillwyn, (Elizabeth) Amy (1845–1935), novelist and businesswoman".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37358.Retrieved16 August2020.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  21. ^"DILLWYN, ELIZABETH AMY (1845–1935), novelist, industrialist and feminist campaigner".Dictionary of Welsh Biography.Retrieved16 August2020.
  22. ^Riley, Gerald (1967)."Mount Cook National Park Place Names and their Origin".New Zealand Alpine Journal.22:110–133.

Sources[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • Gass, K. C.Fragments of History(Specialized Quality Publications, 2000,ISBN0-9634906-4-8)

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toHenry De la Beche.
Wikisourcehas the text of the 1920Encyclopedia AmericanaarticleBeche, Henry De la.
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