William Crawford Williamson

William Crawford Williamson was an English naturalist and paleobotanist born November 24, 1816, in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, who died June 23, 1895, in Clapham, England, and who began research on the distribution of Mesozoic fossils in 1834, studied the role of microscopic organisms in marine deposits from 1845, and examined fish teeth and bone development between 1842 and 1851 before publishing a monograph on Foraminifera for the Ray Society in 1857. His structural analysis of fossil plants is credited with having established British palaeobotany on a scientific basis, work he pursued as professor of natural history at Owens College, Manchester, from 1851, retaining the chair of botany there until 1892. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1854, won the Royal Medal in 1874, delivered the Bakerian Lecture in 1877, served as president of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society from 1884 to 1886, and received the Wollaston Medal in 1890.