The Life and Correspondence of William Buckland, D.D., F. R. S - Sometime Dean of Westminster, Twice President of the Geological Society, and First President of the British Association #221888

Westminster in his later years. Most men cease to be interesting after they have gained their success in life. Buckland was full of interest to the end. Buckland graduated with distinction at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1804, in the golden days long before honours and class-lists were dreamt of. Five years later he was ordained and elected Fellow. As a boy he had taken a keen interest in the rocks and fossils of his Devonshire home, and at Winchester, where he was at school, and, early on his arrival at Oxford, had fallen under the influence of William Smith, the Father of English Geology. He took his first lesson in field geology from one of William Smith's friends. The fruits of this walk to Shotover formed the nucleus of the collection which ultimately expanded into the present Geological Museum. There was in those days nothing of the nature of a Museum in Oxford, excepting the miscellaneous collection of curiosities and antiquities founded by Elias Ashmole. Buckland turned his rooms into a museum, and Murchison has graphically described him sitting in the only empty chair, in his black gown, cleaning out a fossil bone from its matrix, and surrounded by rocks, shells, and bones in dire confusion. Academical dress, it must be noted, was then worn in walks into the country even as far as Shotover.