William Henry Fitton

Background

William Fitton was born January 24, 1780, in Dublin, Ireland. He was the son of Nicholas Fitton, a Dublin attorney. The family, long resident in Ireland, was descended from the Fittons of Gawsworth, Cheshire.

Education

Fitton entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1794 and distinguished himself as a classical scholar, being awarded the senior scholarship in 1798 and receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1799. In 1808 he went to Edinburgh University to study medicine and graduated with a Doctor of Medicine in 1810. Fitton also obtained other medical degrees, a Bachelor of Medicine and a Doctor of Medicine from Dublin in 1815 and a Doctor of Medicine from Cambridge in 1816.

Career

After marrying a lady of some wealth, William gave up his medicine practice and moved to London, thenceforth devoting himself to scientific, particularly geological, studies.

Fitton’s interest in geology went back to his early years in Dublin, and the first volume of the Transactions of the Geological Society of London contained a paper about minerals found in the vicinity of Dublin, by Fitton and his friend Reverend Walter Stephens. In 1813, under the pseudonym “F,” he published in Nicholson’s Journal of Natural Philosophy two articles entitled “On the Geological system of Werner,” a remarkably impartial review of Werner’s theoretical views, their value, and their weaknesses. No doubt the fact that he had, while in Edinburgh, attended the lectures of Robert Jameson and T. C. Hope accounts for his being so well informed about the systems of both Werner and Hutton.

While in Northampton, Fitton began to write reviews of geological and medical books for the Edinbugh Review. Two published in 1817 and 1818 show that his interest in the early history of geology had been aroused. One of these, in particular his review of the publications of William Smith, directed the attention of geologists and others to the career and remarkable achievements of this still far from well-known man, who in 1815 had published a large-scale geological map of England and Wales but was not even a member of the Geological Society. Fitton made verbatim use of his reviews in some valuable articles, Notes on the History of English Geology, which he contributed to the Philosophical Magazine. An article in the Edinburgh review on Lyell’s Elements of Geology, in which the Huttonian theory is discussed, and another on Murchison’s Silurian system, show that Fitton continued to be interested in the history of his favorite subject.

Fitton also contributed to stratigraphy and elucidated the succession of the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous strata of southern England. In his review of Smith’s map he had endeavored to point out some of the errors, one of these being a confusion over the position in the stratigraphical succession of the beds of the Weald in southeast England. It was perhaps this which led Fitton, after his return to London from Northampton, to take a closer interest in this area, especially in Kent and Sussex. Then, in 1824, he examined sections in similar beds along the south coast of the Isle of Wight, already described by Thomas Webster in 1816.

In November 1824, Fitton published in Thomas Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy a masterly account of the beds found below the Chalk in southeast England. Entitled Inquiries Respecting the Geological Relations of the Beds Between the Chalk and the Purbeck Limestone in the South-east of England, it was accompanied by a colored geological map of the southern half of the Isle of Wight and geological sections showing the succession both there and on the neighboring coast of Dorset. In this article Fitton elucidated and corrected the errors which had arisen through the existence of different beds of ferruginous sands, with clays between.

Although it was some time before a final nomenclature was accepted, it was this paper which made it clear that there was an Upper Greensand, just below the Chalk, with Gault clay below it, as both William Smith and Thomas Webster had already recognized. Below this was the Lower Greensand, and all three formations, Fitton pointed out, contained marine fossils. He also showed that the Weald Clay, containing many freshwater fossils, was present beneath the Lower Greensand not only in the Weald but also in the Isle of Wight and on the Dorset coast, and beneath these beds there were ferruginous sands, also with freshwater fossils. These he named the Hastings Sands, after the town on the Sussex coast where they were well exposed. By providing a tabular List of Strata From the Chalk to the Hastings Sands, With Synonimes of Different Geologists, he made it clear just what errors had arisen.

Fitton continued to study the Lower Creatceous and upper Jurrasic strata, both in England and in northern France, and in 1836 published a monograph entitled On Some of the Strata Between the Chalk and the Oxford Oolite in the Southeast of England. This covered much the same field as his earlier paper, but was far longer and embodied many detailed observations, including a number on rocks exposed between Dorset and the Norfolk coast. Accompanied by maps and sections, it is regarded by geologists as a classic contribution to stratigraphy.

Later, between 1843 and 1847, he demonstrated the existence of a clay, the Atherfield Clay, at the base of the Lower Greensand but clearly different from the Weald Clay because it contained marine fossils and marked the readvance of the sea after a long nonmarine episode; he also provided detailed descriptions of an important section along the southwest coast of the Isle of Wight and discussed the equivalents of the Wealden beds in Europe.

Fitton’s only separately published work was a small volume entitled A Geological Sketch of the Vicinity of Hastings, which gives a good account of the Wealden strata, with sections and a bibliography. He was always ready to instruct naturalist travelers in the principles of geology, and they took a particular interest in the geology of Australia. His last published paper, in the Proceedings of the Geographical Society in 1857, was entitled On the Structure of North-West Australia.

Achievements

• William Fitton was an outstanding geologist. His best known work is Fitton's Strata below the Chalk, in which he established the true succession and relations of the Upper and Lower Greensand, and of the Wealden and Purbeck formations, and elaborated their detailed structure. He was awarded the Wollaston Medal by the Geological Society in 1852.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Silurian System: From The Edinburgh Review
  • A Geological Sketch of the Vicinity of Hastings 1833
  • An Account Of Some Geological Specimens From The Coasts Of Australia
  • Inquiries respecting the Geological relations of the beds between the chalk and the Purbeck Limestone in the South-East of England 1824

Membership

Fitton was a member of the Geological Society of London.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "William Fitton is one of the British worthies who have raised modern geology to its present advanced position." - Murchison.

Connections

In June 1820 William married Maria James, a lady of some wealth. They had five sons and three daughters.

Father:

Nicholas Fitton

Spouse:

Maria James Fitton

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography