William Buckland - Glaciation Theory

Glaciation Theory

By this time Buckland was a prominent and influential scientific celebrity and a friend of the Tory prime minister, Sir Robert Peel. In co-operation with Adam Sedgwick and Charles Lyell, he prepared the report leading to establishment of the Geological Survey of Great Britain.

Having become interested in the theory of Louis Agassiz, that polished and striated rocks as well as transported material, had been caused by ancient glaciers, he travelled to Switzerland, in 1838, to meet Agassiz and see for himself. He was convinced and was reminded of what he had seen in Scotland, Wales and northern England but had previously attributed to the Flood. When Agassiz came to Britain for the Glasgow meeting of the British Association, in 1840, they went on an extended tour of Scotland and found evidence there of former glaciation. In that year Buckland had become president of the Geological Society again and, despite their hostile reaction to his presentation of the theory, he was now satisfied that glaciation had been the origin of much of the surface deposits covering Britain.

In 1845 he was appointed by Sir Robert Peel to the vacant Deanery of Westminster (he succeeded Samuel Wilberforce). Soon after, he was inducted to the living of Islip, near Oxford, a preferment attached to the deanery. As Dean and head of Chapter, Buckland was involved in repair and maintenance of Westminster Abbey and in preaching suitable sermons to the rural population of Islip, while continuing to lecture on geology at Oxford. In 1847, he was appointed a trustee in the British Museum and, in 1848, he was awarded the Wollaston Medal, by the Geological Society of London.