William Conybeare

William Daniel Conybeare was an English geologist, palaeontologist and clergyman born June 7, 1787, in London, who died August 12, 1857, at Itchen Stoke, Hampshire, England, and who is best known for his work on fossil marine reptiles in the 1820s, collaborating with Henry De la Beche to describe the plesiosaur from fragmentary remains in 1821 and later describing a nearly complete skeleton discovered by Mary Anning in 1824, alongside significant analysis of ichthyosaur anatomy. He co-authored Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales with William Phillips in 1822 and wrote further geological memoirs on coal districts, mountain chains and the Thames valley, while also serving as Dean of Llandaff from 1845 until his death. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a corresponding member of the Institute of France, and he received the Wollaston Medal in 1844.