Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lonsdale, William
LONSDALE, WILLIAM (1794–1871), geologist, youngest son of William Lonsdale by his wife, Mary, daughter of William Wagstaffe of Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, was born at Bath on 9 Sept. 1794, obtained a commission on 4 Feb. 1812 in the 4th (King's Own) regiment, in which his two brothers were already serving, served in the Peninsular war, and obtained a clasp for the battle of Salamanca. He was also present at Waterloo and received the medal, but shortly after 1815 he retired on the half-pay of a lieutenant. Settling at Batheaston, he devoted himself to the study of geology; began by collecting fossils, numerous examples of which he presented to the Bath Literary and Scientific Institution, and showed so much talent for method and classification that he was in 1826 appointed curator of the natural history department of the Bath Museum. On 15 May 1829 he was elected F.G.S., and was shortly afterwards summoned to London as successor to Thomas Webster, the Geological Society's curator and librarian. The Wollaston fund was awarded him in 1832 in order to aid him in his investigation of the oolite districts of Gloucestershire, commenced in 1830. He resigned his office, after thirteen years' service, in 1842, when he was succeeded by Edward Forbes [q. v.]. The society was indebted to Lonsdale during his term of office for an innovation in the shape of the skilful condensation of its ‘Transactions.’ After his retirement he pursued his geological studies in various parts of the west of England. In 1846 he received both Wollaston fund and medal in recognition of his researches into the various kinds of corals. Leonard Horner [q. v.] spoke highly of the value of his work, as did Sir Henry de la Beche [q. v.] in presenting him with the fund (for the fourth time) in 1849. He died, unmarried, at his house in the City Road, Bristol, on 11 Nov. 1871, and was buried in the Arno's Vale cemetery.
Lonsdale's papers are: 1. ‘On the Oolitic District of Bath’ (Geol. Soc. Trans. 2nd ser. vol. iii. 1829). 2. ‘Report of a Survey on the Oolitic Formations of Gloucestershire’ (Proc. vol. i. 1832). 3. ‘On the Age of the Limestones of South Devonshire’ (Trans. 2nd ser. vol. v. 1840). 4. ‘Three Papers on Polyparia from America’ (Journal, vol. i. 1845). 5. ‘On Fossil Zoophytes found in the Section from Atherfield to Rocken End, Isle of Wight’ (ib. vol. v. 1848). Of these by far the most important is No. 3, which entitles Lonsdale to a place beside Murchison and Sedgwick as co-originator of the theory of the independence of the devonian system, as being of an age intermediate between that of the carboniferous and that of the silurian systems. The independent origin of the old red sandstone was first suggested by Lonsdale in 1837.
[Memoir in W. S. Mitchell's Notes on the Early Geologists connected with neighbourhood of Bath, 1872, pp. 31–9; Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxviii.; Geol. Soc. Proc. iv. 42, 43, 67.]