Record

Authorised form of nameFitton; William Henry (1780 - 1861); geologist
Dates1780 - 1861
Place of birthDublin, Ireland
Date of birthJanuary 1780
Place of deathLondon
Date of death13 May 1861
OccupationPhysician
Research fieldGeology
ActivityEducation:
Trinity College, Dublin. AB (1799), MD (1810, Edinburgh), LCP (1811), MD (1815, Dublin)
Career:
Settled in medical practice, Northampton; assisted Rev Walter Stephens (?1772-1808) with his pioneering geological explorations south of Dublin and edited his findings for posthumous publication as 'Notes on the Mineralogy of Part of the Vicinity of Dublin (1812) and wrote a similarly entitled paper (1811); married a woman of means and gave up medicine for geology; developed the descending strata from chalk to oolite; as President of the Geological Society he initiated the annual Presidential Address and inaugurated the publication of the Society's Proceedings; awarded Wollaston Medal (1852)
Memberships:
FCP (1816); FGS 1816 (President 1827-1829)
Membership categoryFellow
Date of election09/11/1815
RelationshipsSon of Nicholas Fitton; married (1820) Miss James
SourceSources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB; DSB; Irish Innovators
Obituaries:
Proc Roy Soc 1862-1863 vol 12 pp iv-vi
Virtual International Authority Filehttp://viaf.org/viaf/47517277
CodeNA3138
Archives associated with this Fellow
RefNoTitleDate
EC/1815/08Fitton, William Henry: certificate of election to the Royal Society
MS/709/20Letter from William Henry Fitton, 53 Upper Harley Street, to James [De Carle] Sowerby, 2 Mead Place, Lambeth6 July 1827
MS/709/21Letter from William Henry Fitton, Highwood Hill, to [James De Carle] Sowerby, 5 Camden Terrace West, Camden Town20 May 1835
MS/257/2/155Letter from William Henry Fitton to James Clark Ross21 June 1839
DM/1/20Letter from WH Fitton, Brasted, Somerset, to P M Roget10 March 1831
MC/1/266Letter from [William] Henry Fitton, 53 Upper Harley Street, to Dr. [Peter Mark] Roget, Secretary of the Royal Society 22 December 1830
RR/1/157Referee's report by William Henry Fitton, on a paper 'Geological remarks on Kerguelen's Land' by R McCormick16 June 1841
IM/Maull/001423Fitton, William Henry06 June 1860
MC/1Volume 1 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal Society1800-1831
RR/1/162Referee's report by William Henry Fitton, on a paper 'Memoir on a portion of the lower jaw of the iguanodon, and on the remains of the hylaeosaurus and other saurians, discovered in the strata of Tilgate Forest, in Sussex' by Gideon Algernon Mantell10 May 1841
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