Description
THIS TITLE IS NOT YET PUBLISHED AND WILL BE AVAILABLE BY OCTOBER 2026 – ANY ORDERS PLACED WILL BE CHARGED WHEN ORDERED & DISPATCHED WHEN IN STOCK
[This book is for] amateurs who, like myself, enjoy passing their leisure hours among Rocks, old Castles, old Authors, and the wild flowers of strange wayside places. – William Samuel Symonds
William Samuel Symonds (1818–87) lived through extraordinary times. Midway through the nineteenth century two tectonic forces – Church and Science – were in collision. Theologians had settled on 4,004 years for the age of the Earth, but the emerging discipline of geology insisted otherwise. As both churchman and scientist – Rector of Pendock in Worcestershire and a geologist specialising in fish fossils – Symonds found himself at the rock face.
This is the story of a man who strongly advocated for the sharing of scientific knowledge, who co-founded the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, and who corresponded with some of the most consequential figures of the time – including geologists Sedgwick, Murchison, Lyell and Smith, as well as Darwin, Lady Elgar and Jenny Lind. It is the story of a Worcestershire vicar with a world view, widely researched and vividly told.
Dr Christopher Fear is a Herefordshire psychiatrist, amateur palaeontologist and trustee of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club.
Paperback | 256 pages | 234 x 156 mm | Oct 2026
black & white and colour illus
ISBN 9781910839904
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