Adam Sedgwick

This article is about the geologist. For the zoologist, see Adam Sedgwick (zoologist).

The Reverend
Adam Sedgwick
Portrait of Adam Sedgwick, c. 1863, by Ernest Edwards
Born(1785-03-22)22 March 1785
Dent, Yorkshire, England
Died27 January 1873(1873-01-27) (aged 87)
Cambridge, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
Known forClassification of Cambrian rocks; opposition to evolution and natural selection
AwardsWollaston Medal (1833)
Copley Medal (1863)
Scientific career
FieldsGeology
InstitutionsTrinity College, Cambridge
Academic advisorsThomas Jones
John Dawson
Notable studentsGeorge Peacock[1]
William Hopkins
Charles Darwin
Joseph Jukes
Signature

Adam Sedgwick FRS (/ˈsɛdʒwɪk/; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on Welsh rock strata, he proposed the Cambrian period in 1835, in a joint publication in which Roderick Murchison also proposed the Silurian period. Later in 1840, to resolve what later became known as the Great Devonian Controversy about rocks near the boundary between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods, he and Murchison proposed the Devonian period.

Though he had guided the young Charles Darwin in his early study of geology and continued to be on friendly terms, Sedgwick was an opponent of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection.[2][3]

He strongly opposed the admission of women to the University of Cambridge, in one conversation describing aspiring female students as "nasty forward minxes."[4]

  1. ^ Background note on Adam Sedgwick Archived 21 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Ray Spangenburg, Diane Moser, The Age of Synthesis: 1800–1895. Infobase Publishing. p. 94
  3. ^ Bernard V. Lightman, Bennett Zon. Evolution and Victorian Culture. Cambridge University Press, p. 292
  4. ^ Clark, John Willis; Hughes, Thomas McKenny (1890). The life and letters of the Reverend Adam Sedgwick. University of California Libraries. Cambridge, University Press.