Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Buckman, James
BUCKMAN, JAMES (1816–1884), geologist, son of John Buckman, born at Cheltenham in 1816, was educated privately. After serving as pupil to a surgeon-apothecary at Cheltenham, he studied chemistry, botany, and geology in London; afterwards lectured at the Cheltenham Philosophical Institution; in 1846 was appointed curator and resident professor at the Birmingham Philosophical Institution, and from 1848 to 1863 was professor of geology and botany at the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. In 1863 he retired to a farm at Bradford Abbas, Dorsetshire, which he conducted on scientific principles, and became a recognised authority on all matters connected with agriculture. Buckman died at Bradford Abbas on 23 Nov. 1884. He wrote on the Cheltenham Spa, on the geology, botany, and archæology of the neighbourhood, 1842; on the ‘Flora of the Cotteswolds,’ 1844; and on the ‘Geology of the Cotteswolds,’ 1845; on the ‘Ancient Straits of Malvern;’ on the ‘Remains of Roman Art,’ 1850; a ‘History of British Grasses,’ 1858; and ‘Science and Practice in Farm Cultivation,’ 1863. He also contributed papers to the ‘Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,’ to the ‘Geological Society's Transactions,’ to the journals of the Royal Agricultural Society and the Bath and West of England Society, and to Martin's ‘Cyclopædia of Agriculture.’ His botanical papers chiefly dealt with the subject from an agricultural point of view. In geology he devoted himself to the palæontology and stratigraphy of the Jurassic series in his own districts. Buckman presented collections of Roman antiquities and fossils to Cirencester, the latter to the college, and the former to the Corinium Museum there.
[Men of the Time, 11th ed. 1884; Geological Soc. Quarterly Journal, xli. 43.]