William Buckland | |||||||||||
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| Dean of Westminster | |||||||||||
.jpg) Buckland in 1833 | |||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||
| Born | 12 March 1784 Axminster, Devon, England | ||||||||||
| Died | 14 August 1856 (aged 72) Islip, Oxfordshire, England | ||||||||||
| Denomination | Anglican | ||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||
| Alma mater | Winchester College, Corpus Christi College, Oxford | ||||||||||
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William Buckland DD, FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and palaeontologist.
Buckland wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus. His work proved that Kirkdale Cave in North Yorkshire had been a prehistoric hyena den, for which he was awarded the Copley Medal. It was praised as an example of how scientific analysis could reconstruct events in the distant past. He pioneered the use of fossilised faeces in reconstructing ecosystems, coining the term coprolites.
Buckland followed the Gap Theory in interpreting the biblical account of Genesis as two widely separated episodes of creation. It had emerged as a way to reconcile the scriptural account with discoveries in geology suggesting the earth was very old. Early in his career Buckland believed he had found evidence of the biblical flood, but later saw that the glaciation theory of Louis Agassiz gave a better explanation, and played a significant role in promoting it.