Kent Brooks describes the life of Adam Sedgwick of Dent, a founder of geological science

LIKE John Dawson of Garsdale, Adam Sedgwick of Dent showed remarkable social mobility.

Born in 1785, the son of the Dent schoolmaster, he rose to be a Cambridge professor, a founder of the science of geology and a friend of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

From his father’s school, Dent Grammar School, he progressed to Sedbergh School and then to Trinity College, Cambridge.

Very hard work led to ordination (necessary for one’s career in those days), a fellowship of the college and, although he initially knew little of the subject, Woodwardian Professor of Geology.

Vigorously promoting teaching and research in geology, he eventually became president of the Geological Society of London, reaching the top of his profession.

Sedgwick was best known for his work on Palaeozoic stratigraphy. Working in Wales, he established the Cambrian Period for the oldest fossiliferous rocks and went on together with Roderick Murchison to define the Devonian and Silurian Periods. Later there was a rancorous disagreement of the two which led eventually to the definition of the Ordovician Period.

Sedgwick worked closely with Prince Albert on reforms to the University of Cambridge and was invited by Queen Victoria to Windsor, Balmoral and Osborne House, acting also as family chaplain. Furthermore, he was a friend of William Wordsworth, who referred, not very reverentially, to geologists in several of his works.

Late in life Sedgwick came into conflict with his former student Charles Darwin, perhaps because, as an ordained priest, he found the religious implications of evolution unacceptable or possibly because of the inflexibility of old age.

Sedgwick was always an enthusiastic Dalesman with deep affection for Dent.

In response to a problem with the new chapel at Cowgill, he wrote an acclaimed work giving unprecedented social insights into his native dale, which at this time was suffering economic hardship: the independent “statesmen” were being replaced by tenants of absentee landlords.

When we read of him struggling through snow drifts in Barbondale on his way home for Christmas after a three-day journey by coach from Cambridge we realise how remote Dent was in times gone by.

Adam Sedgwick is buried in Trinity College Chapel, close to his Heversham colleague and scientific giant William Whewell.

He is commemorated by the Sedgwick Museum, centre of earth sciences in Cambridge to this day, and by a huge monolith of Shap granite in the centre of Dent Town.

On his death Queen Victoria sent a telegram mourning the loss of an “old friend”.