James Parkinson's 'system of successive creations' - CiteSeerX

James Parkinson’s ‘system of successive creations’

CHERRY LEWIS

Honorary Research Fellow, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial

Building, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ (e-mail: [email protected])

Abstract: This paper presents a new look at how the apothecary surgeon, James Parkinson (1755–1824), integrated his geological understanding with his religious ideas. It is only through theintellectual questions raised by the emerging science of geology that we are able to examine hisreligious beliefs as these were not apparently challenged by, and consequently not discussed in,any of his other published works on politics, medicine or chemistry. Although Parkinson held‘conventional’ Christian beliefs prevailing at the time, he did not permit these to stand in theway of the geological evidence; his later private views regarding how the Creation story cameabout were never fully revealed in his publications. By accepting that a ‘system of successive cre-ations’ had occurred, which circumvented certain aspects of the biblical account of Creation, headapted his faith to accommodate the indisputable facts of geology, concurring with thenmodern views about how the Earth had formed.

In 1807 the eponymous James Parkinson of Parkin-son’s disease became a founder member of the Geo-logical Society (Lewis 2009a). Following closelyin his father’s footsteps he had first trained asan apothecary, progressing to surgeon in 1784(Gardener-Thorpe 1987; Morris & Rose 1989;Roberts 1997), after which he attended a six-monthcourse of evening lectures given by the famoussurgeon, John Hunter (1728–1793). Parkinson’snotes of these lectures, originally taken down inshorthand and then transcribed in his spare time,were subsequently published by his son, John Par-kinson (1785–1838), under the title HunterianReminiscences (Parkinson 1833). At the time Par-kinson took these classes, Hunter had recentlymoved to new premises in Leicester Square wherehe had built a new lecture theatre, above whichwere two floors that housed his remarkable collec-tions (Moore 2005, p. 431). Before opening hismuseum to the general public in 1788, Hunterallowed selected individuals such as medical prac-titioners, members of London’s learned societiesand foreigners of distinction to view the collectionsin May and October each year, believing thathis spectacular displays promoted the ‘divine artof medicine’.1 As Parkinson relates, it was whenhe first saw Hunter’s large collection of fossils –probably while taking these evening classes in1785 – that he first became interested in collectingfossils himself:

From the earliest Moment of viewing the splendid andbeautifully illustrative Collection of our revered and

celebrated Countryman, John Hunter . . . the Remainsof Animals which existed, in periods respectingwhich we posses, perhaps, no Records, became theSubject of my anxious Investigations.2

Following a dramatic five years in radical poli-tics, from 1799 onwards Parkinson embarked ona prodigious period of writing works on medicineand chemistry (Lewis 2009a). In 1804, when hewas nearly 50 and had been studying and collectingfossils for almost 20 years, he published the firstof his three volumes of Organic Remains of a For-mer World, which was followed by two subsequentvolumes in 1808 and 1811. These volumes broughtfossils (Fig. 1) to the attention of both naturalistsand the general public at a time when the study ofgeology as a scientific endeavour was in itsinfancy. Like many of his contemporaries, Parkin-son searched for a theory that would explain whathe understood about the physical properties of theEarth, and which also accommodated his religiousbeliefs (Lewis 2009b).

A system of successive creations

Parkinson held similar geological and religiousbeliefs to the French naturalist, Jean Andre de Luc(1727–1817), who interpreted geohistory as asequence of several vast periods of time, each ofwhich roughly corresponded to one of the sevendays of Creation described in the Bible (de Luc1779). In Volume 3 of Organic Remains Parkinson

1Display notice in the Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons.2Parkinson’s response to the presentation of the Royal College of Surgeon’s gold medal, on Friday the seventh day of

April, 1823. Royal College of Surgeon’s Court of Assistants and Council Minute Book RCS-GOV-1-1-3.

From: Duffin, C. J., Moody, R. T. J. & Gardner-Thorpe, C. (eds) 2013. A History of Geology and Medicine.Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 375, 339–348.First published online May 15, 2013, http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/SP375.18# The Geological Society of London 2013. Publishing disclaimer: www.geolsoc.org.uk/pub_ethics

at Pennsylvania State University on September 13, 2016http://sp.lyellcollection.org/Downloaded from

http://sp.lyellcollection.org/

discusses this deviation from the biblical account ofCreation in some detail:

If we are constrained to receive this word [day] asdescriptive of that length of time in which this planetnow performs its diurnal revolutions . . . it must be

acknowledged that the stumbling-block is immovable.But if, on the other hand, the word day be admitted asfiguratively designating certain indefinite periods, inwhich particular parts of the great work of creationwere accomplished, no difficulty will then remain.The age of the world, according to the scriptural

Fig. 1. Frontispiece to Volume 2 (1808) of Organic Remains of a Former World, courtesy University of Bristol LibrarySpecial Collections. Parkinson described the fossil accordingly: ‘The fossil animal body which is here represented is ofthe genus Alcyonium . . . The original animal fibres are now entirely silicious [sic]; and the interstices are filled withcarbonate of lime’. He believed it had originated from the neighbourhood of Touraine, in France. The original specimenfrom which this drawing was made can still be seen in the Natural History Museum, London.

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account, will then agree with that which is manifestedby the phenomena of its stratification (Parkinson 1811,p. 451).

Concerned, however, that he would obtain ‘very lit-tle support in such a change from the critical expos-itors of this part of scriptural history’, he calls onno less a figure than Moses to support his interpre-tation: ‘Moses himself employs this word in thissense, when speaking of the whole creation of theheavens and the earth, and all the host of them.‘These,’ he says, ‘are the generations of the heav-ens and the earth, when they were created, in theday that the Lord God made the earth and theheavens.’ Genesis 2: 4.’ (Parkinson 1811, p. 452).

The concept of consecutive ‘periods’ of Cre-ation, which Parkinson ultimately termed a ‘systemof successive creations’ (Parkinson 1821, p. 342),explained why fossils from different horizons in thestratigraphic record proved so dissimilar to com-parable animals still in existence and why manyof them appeared to have lived in completely dif-ferent environments from those prevailing in Brit-ain today. Since it was clear to Parkinson that theremains of such animals had not been washed intotheir current positions during the Deluge and ‘musthave lived on the very spots in which they are nowfound imbedded’ (Parkinson 1811, p. 441), heassumed that each new animal that appeared hadbeen created during the period, and at the place, inwhich it was found.

As in Britain today, there was a wide spectrumof religious beliefs in Georgian society, althoughevidence suggests that a significant proportion ofthat society believed in a young Earth, formed inaccordance with the biblical account of Creation(O’Connor 2007, p. 361). Indeed, as we shall see,Parkinson made strenuous attempts not to offendthis sector of society with his departures from thebiblical account; if these beliefs were not held byhis readers, why else would he have tried so hard toappease them? Even though by the late 18th cen-tury many naturalists who were interested in suchmatters recognized that a young Earth was incom-patible with the emergence of a wide range of nat-ural evidence (Rudwick 2005, p. 116), Parkinsonembarked on his enquiries regarding fossils withsome trepidation. From the start he was anxious thatthe outcome might contradict ‘the Mosaic accountof Creation’ and thereby inflame his audience.This audience of ‘readers in general’ to whom thevolumes were addressed (Parkinson 1804, p. vii)largely consisted of the ‘middling sort’ of Georgiansociety: the new, self-confident and affluent mid-dle classes who were in a position to afford andbuy his books. Joseph Priestley claimed they were‘generally better educated, and have consequentlymore enlarged minds . . . than those born to greatopulence’ (Priestley 1768, p. 16). Despite their

education and enlightened minds, as O’Connor(2007, p. 361) points out:

. . . the ‘orthodoxy’ of an old-earth cosmology wasnot there for the taking; it had to be painstakinglyconstructed, using various performance strategiesdesigned to persuade the literate classes that the newschool of geology trumped biblical exegesis in ques-tions about earth history.

Writing at the end of the third volume, seven yearsafter he had published the first volume, Parkinsonreported how he had nevertheless been determinedto face this challenge and ‘prosecute it with fairness;to shrink from no question on account of its sup-posed tenderness; and to conceal no conclusion,however repugnant to popular opinion or prejudice’(Parkinson 1811, p. 464).

Smith’s order of the strata

When it came to appreciating the importance of fos-sils to the interpretation of geology, Parkinson wasahead of many of his British contemporaries in fol-lowing William Smith (1769–1839) and acknow-ledging the importance of Smith’s work. WhileParkinson recognized that fossil remains were

found in those parts of the world in which no similarbeings ever existed and in climates in which it is pre-sumed that they could not live; that the remains ofnumerous unknown plants are found . . . at considerabledepths; and that the remains of marine animals arefound in very lofty mountains, as well as far beneaththe surface of the earth,

he made it clear to his audience that such facts ontheir own were of little value in ‘respecting theage or formation of this planet’ unless they were

connected with that of the strata in which they arefound. For calling the attention of geologists to thismode of directing their inquiries, we are much indebtedto Mr. William Smith, who, long since . . . pointed outthe necessity of ascertaining the fossils belonging toeach particular stratum . . . (Parkinson 1811, p. 441).

Using the stratigraphy of the British Isles estab-lished by Smith, and having had ‘exceedinglyliberal and unreserved communications’ (Parkinson1811, p. 442) regarding the order of strata withSmith’s advocate, John Farey (1766–1826), Parkin-son reproduced Smith’s list of the ‘upper stratawhich have been discovered in this island, disposedin the order in which they occur’ (Parkinson 1811,p. 442ff) and discusses the occurrence and fossilsof each stratum in various places around thecountry. From this discussion it becomes apparentthat there is a regular and ordered progressionfrom one stratum to the other, whatever part of thecountry one is located in. This, coupled with theastonishing fact that Farey considered the base of

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the inferior strata lay some ‘three miles perpendicu-larly lower than the upper part of the chalk strata’(Parkinson 1811, p. 443) confirmed to Parkinsonthat the formation of the Earth and the creation ofits inhabitants ‘must have been the work of a vastlength of time, and must have been effected atseveral distant periods’ (Parkinson 1811, p. 449).

Moses’ order of the strata

Having stated the facts, Parkinson still felt itwas necessary to convince his ‘religiously correct’readers how the order of the strata also concurredwith the biblical account of creation ‘as related byMoses’. For example, having stated that duringthe first period of creation ‘the granitic and otherprimary rocks were separated from the water’ (Par-kinson 1811, p. 449), an asterisk takes us to a noteat the bottom of the page which refers us to Gen-esis 1: 9. As many of his readers would have known,this verse states: ‘And God said, Let the watersunder the heavens be gathered together into oneplace, and let the dry land appear: and it was so’.During the second period the remains of vegetation(specifically coal) were deposited (Genesis 1: 12)‘And the earth brought forth grass, yielding seedafter its kind, and the tree bearing fruit, whereinis the seed thereof, after its kind: and God saw thatit was good’. This was followed by a period inwhich the remains of animals that lived in waterand the inhabitants of the air could be found(Genesis 1: 20). In support of the concurrence ofthis third period with the Scriptures was

the contents of all the numerous strata lying abovethose already mentioned; including the blue clay[Lias] . . . In all these strata are no remains to befound but those of the inhabitants of the waters . . .[and] in none of these strata has a single relic beenmet with which can be supposed to have belonged toany terrestrial animal.

Dinosaurs had not then been recognized. Inaccordance with Genesis 1: 24, terrestrial animalsappeared after marine animals and birds and agree-ment here ‘with the stated order of creation, isexceedingly exact; since it is only in . . . some com-paratively lately formed deposition, that anyremains of these animals are to be found’. Finally,the creation of Man occurred during the lastperiod, as suggested by Genesis 1: 26:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after ourlikeness: and let them have dominion over the fish ofthe sea, and over the birds of the air, and over thecattle and over all the earth, and over every creepingthing that creepeth upon the earth.

Here the fossil record agreed with the Scriptures for‘having been created after all the other inhabitants

of the earth was the fact, that not a single decidedfossil relic of man has ever been discovered’ (Par-kinson 1811, p. 451).

De Luc considered this last period to be only afew thousand years old when compared with thevast tracts of time represented by the six earlierperiods, although Parkinson is less precise abouthow many periods there had been in total, onlyclearly identifying five. Separating these periodswere ‘revolutions’ (as de Luc termed them), themost recent of which had been the biblical Floodwhich both de Luc and Parkinson believed sepa-rated the antediluvian world in which fossils werefound from the post-diluvian world of today. Par-kinson took this idea even further, believing thatin disposing of the antediluvian world in the FloodGod had restocked the larder, so to speak, storingwithin the bowels of the new world:

substances calculated to promote the comfort of man[in order] to furnish him with the means of supportinghis dominion of the animals around him and even tourge him to change from the savage to a civilizedstate (Parkinson 1804, p. 467).

He considered such substances to be coal ‘derivedfrom the vegetables of a former creation’ (Parkinson1821, p. 336), bitumen and petroleum, as well as‘the limestone which forms the humble cottage ofthe peasant; or the marble which adorns the splendidpalace of the prince’ (Parkinson 1804, p. 8), all ofwhich demonstrated ‘a careful provision for thewants of man’.

Despite discovering anomalies within his strati-graphic record, such as limestones full of fossilizedshells within the coal measures, indicating the pres-ence of animals which should only have appearedafter the deposition of vegetation, the apparentaccordance of the scriptural description of the orderof Creation as stated in the Bible with the order offossils found within strata was sufficient to convinceParkinson in 1811 of the validity of some aspectsof the biblical account of Creation, which greatlypleased him:

That the result should be so strongly confirmatory ofthe Mosaic account, I acknowledge was unexpected;and that so close an agreement should be found ofthe order of creation, as stated in Scripture, with theactual appearances of the depth of stratificationwhich has been examined in modern times, mustsatisfy or surprise everyone – Moses could not havelearned this accordance from the Egyptians (Parkinson1811, p. 452).

The Deluge problem

Supporting evidence for Parkinson’s ‘system ofsuccessive creations’ lay in the fact that the Earthhad been subjected to multiple phases of burial

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beneath the sea, followed by uplift, indicating‘revolutions’ which separated the different periods.When writing to de Luc in 1812, Parkinson givesexamples of where the land had been uplifted atdifferent times and places:

some of the mountains in the South Sea Islands, reach-ing above 100 feet higher than the level of the sea, areformed of the same coral which is now forming soabundantly in the adjoining sea . . . [and] the shells ofthe Craggs of Suffolk . . . I have always considered asthe remains of the sea which perhaps immediately pre-ceded the present. The uncommon Anomid foundamong those shells show that it was a different sea[from today] . . .3

But despite understanding the concept of uplift, heseems not to comprehend its consequences andgoes on to ask, ‘But how shall we account for theapparent removal of whole strata?’ He also admitsto de Luc that he has difficulty in accepting thatstrata subsided, although he was content to deferto de Luc’s greater observational experience inthese matters: ‘. . . when I recollect . . . the closeattention with which you have enquired into allthese points I acknowledge that I am but little dis-posed to offer an objection’.

One of the major questions of the time waswhether Man had existed before the Deluge (Fig.2), since his appearance after it ran the risk ofbeing ‘considered by many as being contradictoryof the account of the Deluge, by which the earth,with man, was said to have been destroyed . . . ’

The fact, however, is, that . . . the surface of the Earth,which is inhabited by man, displays, even at the pres-ent day, manifest and decided marks of the mechani-cal agency of violent currents of water. Nor is therea single stratum of all those which have been men-tioned which does not exhibit undeniable proofs ofit having been broken, and even dislocated, by sometremendous power, which has acted with consider-able violence on this planet, since the deposition ofthe strata of even the latest formation (Parkinson1811, p. 451).

Futhermore, Parkinson argued, if Man had livedin the antediluvian world,

the number of human beings which would have existedat the time of the deluge, would have been so great . . .that their weapons, the various utensils, and articles

of furniture, must necessarily have been discoveredamong the antediluvian remains.

Since none had ever been found, Parkinson can butconclude that ‘man had not been created, at thatperiod . . .’ (Parkinson 1804, p. 470). He was toreturn to this theme years later.

Letter to Buckland

In 1821, just three years before Parkinson died (bywhich time he had become a renowned authorityon fossils), Parkinson wrote a letter to the geologistWilliam Buckland (1784–1856) which demon-strates much more confidence in his geologicalinterpretations than he had expressed in his publi-cations 10 or more years earlier. On the other hand,the difference might lie in the fact that in writingprivately to Buckland Parkinson felt able to expresshis true beliefs; when writing for the general publiche may have thought he needed to be more cir-cumspect. Buckland, then the Professor of Geo-logy at Oxford University and also a minister inthe church, had sent Parkinson a copy of one ofhis lectures,4 but Parkinson took some while tothank Buckland for his kindness because, as heexplains, he didn’t feel ‘quite satisfied’ with thelecture. Before explaining why he had hesitated,Parkinson first thanked Buckland for demonstrat-ing that

the great age of this planet; the low antiquity of thehuman race and of the Noachian deluge; the numerousprevious revolutions which this planet has sustained;the differences between the organic remains of thedifferent strata, and the non-agreement of almost allof these with beings now existing; are not [myitalics] compatible with the account of the Creationas given by Moses.5

As if this wasn’t sufficient contradiction of the bib-lical account, he continues:

But more is still required: the omission . . . of the fact ofthe remains of the human race having never yet beenfound either in the deposits of the earlier ages or inthe alluvium of the deluge itself, must be injurious tothe progress of knowledge . . . .

Irritated that Buckland had not made this impor-tant point in his lecture, Parkinson is forthright

3A transcription of this letter, dated 11 December 1812, is held in the University of Bristol Library Special Collections,

DM1186, in a folder of letters to James Sowerby. The original letter seems to have disappeared, but photographs of it

are held in the archives of the Wellcome Library among uncatalogued material from AD Morris, PP/ADM, Box 1. See

also endnote 5 in Lewis 2009b.4This lecture was probably Buckland’s inaugural address at Oxford University delivered on 15 May 1819, published in

1820 under the title of Vindiciae Geologiae; or the Connexion of Geology with Religion Explained.5Letter to William Buckland from James Parkinson, 28 January 1821. Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Buckland Letters, Box 2/P3.




in pointing out the consequences of such anomission:

If a fact ascertained by a long and laborious investi-gation be held back I fear it may interrupt the progress,and misdirect the exertions of science, and therebylessen the power of . . . our stock of knowledge. . . .[So] when I look at the considerable degree of accor-dance which your labours have already made manifestI am impelled to wish that you would extend them tothis point . . . that man was not created until after thedeluge [Parkinson’s underline].

While Parkinson still didn’t question the fact that theDeluge had occurred, by this time his understandingof the vastness of geological time had evolved suffi-ciently such that he was able to accept that Moses’account of it in the Bible must be inaccurate,explaining it to Buckland thus: ‘the account of thedeluge may be attributed to his (Moses) . . . unin-formed judgement, embracing the adopted traditionof that day’. Unfortunately we do not have Buck-land’s reply to this reprimand from one of geology’selder statesmen.

Fig. 2. Frontispiece to Volume 1 (1804) of Organic Remains of a Former World, courtesy University of Bristol LibrarySpecial Collections. After the Deluge a shattered antediluvian world, with Noah’s Ark resting on Mount Ararat inthe background, heralds a new dawn.

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Outlines of Oryctology

A year after writing to Buckland, Parkinson pub-lished Outlines of Oryctology, an Introduction tothe Study of Fossil Organic Remains, a textbookintended for students. In this he reaffirms hisbelief in the ‘perpetual influence of a Divine Provi-dence’ while reiterating many of the points madeabove to Buckland. In Parkinson’s summary ofthese, we get a vivid picture of his wonder atthe extraordinary events in the Earth’s ancienthistory – which perhaps today we take too muchfor granted – that were being newly revealed toParkinson and his contemporaries through thisyoung science of geology, and how he struggledto understand how the enormous changes visiblein the rock record could have occurred.

First he explained how different strata were‘the consequences of successive changes effectedon the Earth’s surface’ and that the fossils they con-tained had been ‘successively formed to accord withthe state of the planet under its several changes’. Inother words, as conditions on the Earth changed,the animals that lived there somehow adapted tothose climatic and environmental changes. In the10 years since he had completed Organic Remains,discovery had been made of ‘relics of a tribe ofenormous marine animals: quadrupeds, possess-ing the blended structure of fish and lizards; theIchthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, etc’ (Parkinson 1821,p. 334). To Parkinson, these extraordinary animalswere the most decided proof of ‘another world’having existed in the distant past and further con-firmed his belief in a system of successive crea-tions. Higher up in the rock record ‘on the surfaceof the vast mass of upper clay, the traces of dilu-vial torrents and the desolation which accompaniedthe last grand catastrophe’ could be found: ‘. . . wethere find the remains of another creation, the ter-restrial quadrupeds; a new order of animals, differ-ing in almost every respect from those which hadpreceded them . . .’. There then followed yetanother ‘vast change’ to this planet, such that ‘somespecies of quadrupeds were entirely removed’. . .while others such as the ‘elephant, rhinoceros, andhippopotamus . . . still remain’. Finally, all theseinconceivable ‘changes in the state of the planet,and this partial destruction of quadrupeds, appearto have been succeeded by the creation of man’.He then arrived at the old stumbling block: the cre-ation of man, who apparently arrived after the greatDeluge in which he was supposed to have perished.

Despite having reprimanded Buckland just ayear earlier for not having clearly stated in hislecture that Moses’ account of the Creation had

been ‘uninformed’, Parkinson is disinclined toreveal his private beliefs when writing for thegeneral public. While he does state ‘The Mosaicaccount of this deluge has, however, been doubted,from the total absence of the fossil remains ofman’, he stops short of saying that Moses’ accountof creation is a myth, and states instead that per-haps Man’s remains had not been fossilized andtherefore had not been discovered. On the pointregarding the time taken for creation of the world,however, he remained steadfast:

The assumption of successive creations with the accor-dant changes in the state of the planet, does not, indeed,agree with the Mosaic account of the creation; at least,in its ordinary acceptation. The facts, however, appearto be as they are stated. May not the discordancedepend on a misconception of the Sacred Writings?Once more, with submission and deference – maynot the days of creation be considered as periods oflong and indefinite duration?

Furthermore, he ends the book with a remarkablyprescient understanding that Man, like many of theanimals that had preceded him and becomeextinct, would not be here for ever:

From these several creations it appears that beingshave proceeded, gradually increasing in superiority,from testaceous animals to reptiles, marine and fresh-water amphibia, quadrupeds, and lastly to man, who,in his turn, is destined, with the Earth he inhabits, topass away, and be succeeded by a new heaven and anew earth.

The Royal College of Surgeons

Parkinson was a significant figure during his life-time in the fields of both medicine and geology, sowhen John Hunter’s collection was moved to theRoyal College of Surgeons (where it still residestoday) Parkinson was consulted as to how it shouldbe displayed. Senior figures in the Royal College ofSurgeons, of which he was a member, recognizedhow an understanding of geology complimentedanatomy and physiology and therefore medicine,acknowledging how his long life of research hadbeen ‘eminently conducive to the Improvement ofNatural Knowledge and of the Healing Art’. Onhis 68th birthday (11 April 1823), Parkinson wasthe first person to be awarded the College’s honor-ary gold medal in consideration of:

his useful Labours for the Promotion of NaturalKnowledge, particularly expressed by his splendidwork on Organic Remains – and of his liberal and valu-able Information when called upon by the College, inits Research for Facts relating to its Scientific Designs.6

6Royal College of Surgeon’s Court of Assistants and Council Minute Book RCS-GOV-1-1-3, 11 October 1822.




Fig. 3. Plate IX from Volume 3 (1811) of Organic Remains of a Former World, courtesy University of Bristol LibrarySpecial Collections. The handwritten note at the bottom says: ‘Published as the Act directs by Ja.s Parkinson, Hoxton,Decbr 17th, 1810’. Parkinson’s caption read (left to right) as follows: (1) A belemenite imbedded in flint; (2) A baculitesfrom Maestricht; (3) A spondylolite, a cast formed in the chamber of an ammonite; a depression on the back, marking thesituation of the siphuncle; (4) Part of an ammonite, showing the siphuncle in situ; (5) The section of an ammonite,showing the course of the siphuncle; (6) An oval ammonite; (7) A pyritical ammonite, showing the foliaceous sutures;(8) An ammonite, possessing a considerable portion of the shell; (9) The section of an ammonite, showing the sinuoussepta.

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At a meeting of the College Council earlier in theday, it was recommended that the regulation

prohibiting the invitation of any member of the collegein actual practice to dine with the members of thecouncil be suspended in the person of Mr. James Par-kinson on this occasion.

Parkinson therefore sat down to dine with the mem-bers of council and his old friend, Sir WilliamBlizard, delivered the oration:

Your lively Attention of the Designs of the College,whenever, relating to them, you have been calledupon for Information concerning objects of yourspecial Investigation, the well known facilitiesafforded by you to Naturalists desirous of consultingyour Collection of fossil Remains of Animals; andthe general Tenor of your Scientific Life; express thatLiberality in the Labours of Advancement and Com-munication of Natural Knowledge, which this Col-lege, in all its Proceedings, is bound to practice andto promote.

. . .

Your Demonstrations of the Characters of numerousAnimal Productions, and of the Alterations producedon them by extraneous Agency, through a long Seriesof Ages, will prove of essential Help in Endeavoursfor the Correction of Error, and the Ascertainment ofFact, relating to the physical Changes of this Globe;and for the Improvement of the elementary Sciencesof Anatomy, Physiology and Chemistry.

. . .

Thus, Sir, by your own exertions, and by the Spiritexcited by you in others, you will prove, not only animmediate Elucidation of marvellous Remains ofanimal Creation, which have for Ages been entombedin the Bowels of the Earth, but also, by the Diffusion,Reflection, and proper Direction of that Light whichyou have afforded a Benefaction to Science, and tothe Generations of the present Inhabitants of theEarth to the End of Time.7

He was accordingly awarded the Gold Medal, butit is interesting to note that no mention was madeof his extensive medical publications whichincluded his essay on the shaking palsy, later knownas Parkinson’s disease. When Parkinson died thefollowing year, his glorious collection of fossils(Fig. 3) was offered to the Royal College of Sur-geons which was keen to purchase it.8 Parkinson’swife however decided ‘that the collection of fos-sils should not be sold for less than £1500’,9

which presumably the College could not afford orwas not prepared to pay. The collection thereforewent to auction where, according to Gideon

Mantell (1790–1852), items were sold for verysmall sums and became dispersed around the world.

A careful reading of Parkinson’s works, com-bined with the contents of a few extant letters, pro-vides clear evidence that by the end of his lifeParkinson did not believe in the biblical accountof the Creation and the Deluge, and did believethat life had appeared on the planet through a sys-tem of successive creations. His views were there-fore broadly in agreement with then modern ideas,in particular, the great age of the planet and thatmany species had become extinct (Lewis 2009b).Although Parkinson never gave up his belief in agood and benevolent God, the evidence providedby fossils and geology could not be ignored.

Many thanks to M. Rudwick whose constructive com-ments greatly improved this paper. M. Richardson at theUniversity of Bristol’s Special Collections was, as ever,unfailingly helpful.

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Gardner-Thorpe, C. 1987. James Parkinson 1755–1824. A. Wheaton and Co. Ltd., Exeter.

Lewis, C. L. E. 2009a. Doctoring geology: the medicalorigins of the Geological Society. In: Lewis, C. L. E.& Knell, S. (eds) The Making of the GeologicalSociety of London. Geological Society, London,Special Publications, 317, 49–92.

Lewis, C. L. E. 2009b. Our favourite science: the BritishPrime Minister and the apothecary surgeon, searchingfor a Theory of the Earth. In: Kolbl-Ebert, M. (ed.)Geology and Religion: Historical Views of an IntenseRelationship between Harmony and Hostility. TheGeological Society, London, Special Publications,310, 111–126.

Moore, W. 2005. The Knife Man. Bantam Books, London.Morris, A. D. & Rose, C. F. 1989. James Parkinson his

Life and Times. Birkhauser, Berlin, Basel, Boston.O’Connor, R. 2007. Young-Earth creationists in early

19th-century Britain? Towards a reassessment of the‘scriptural geology’. History of Science, xlv, 357–403.

Parkinson, J. 1804, 1808 and 1811. Organic Remains of aFormer World. An Examination of the MineralizedRemains of the Vegetables and Animals of the Antedi-luvian World; Generally Termed Extraneous Fossils.C. Whittingham, London, 3.

Parkinson, J. 1821. Outlines of Oryctology. An Introduc-tion to the Study of Fossil Organic Remains.W. Phillips, London.

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