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Journal article
The geological and historical milieu of an ornamental cephalopod limestone (‘orthoceratite limestone’, Ordovician, Sweden) used in the Clerk Mausoleum (1684), St Mungo's Kirkyard, Penicuik, Scotland
A slab of cephalopod limestone bears a dedicatory Latin inscription on the mausoleum built around 1684 by Sir John Clerk of Penicuik (1649–1722) for his wife Elizabeth Henderson (1658–83) at St Mungo's Church, Penicuik, near Edinburgh, Scotland. The stone is identified on sedimentological and palaeontological evidence and historical context as... -
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Journal article
The Life of Mary Anning, Fossil Collector of Lyme Regis: a Contemporary Biographical Memoir by George Roberts
Despite the modern celebrity of the fossil collector Mary Anning (1799–1847) of Lyme Regis and her frequent use as an icon in scientific education and popularization, there are few accounts of her life by her contemporaries. We report here a previously unpublished anonymous manuscript memoir of Anning's life, in the...Taylor, Michael A ; Benton, Michael J
George Roberts, Lyme Regis, Athenæum, and Mary Anning obituary
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Book
Hugh Miller: stonemason, geologist, writer
Hugh Miller was born in 1802 in Cromarty, Ross-shire. He started his working life as a stonemason’s apprentice; he later became a social commentator and crusader. He also inspired in others an interest in fossils. His was a household name in his lifetime, not only in Scotland but across the...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Science in a Somerset Quaker community: Alfred Gillett (1814-1904) fossil collecting and kinship networks in and around Street
Alfred Gillett (1814-1904) was a son of John Gillett, a Langport shopkeeper, and his wife Martha, part of a complex network of families which formed the core of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in eastern and south-eastern Somerset. He went into trade as an ironmonger. In 1841 he became...Taylor, Michael A ; Berry , Charlotte
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Journal article
Hugh’s printing protégé becomes his publisher. The story of Alexander Strachan or Strahan, publisher of The Life and Letters of Hugh Miller
I am researching Hugh Miller’s unusual publishing arrangements, including the frequency with which his firm, Miller & Fairly, printed his books for their Edinburgh publishers before and after his death. The obvious exception is Peter Bayne’s family-approved The Life and Letters of Hugh Miller (1871), printed in London for Strahan...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Hugh’s printing protégé becomes his publisher. The story of Alexander Strachan or Strahan, publisher of The Life and Letters of Hugh Miller.
I am researching Hugh Miller’s unusual publishing arrangements, including the frequency with which his firm, Miller & Fairly, printed his books for their Edinburgh publishers before and after his death. The obvious exception is Peter Bayne’s family-approved The Life and Letters of Hugh Miller (1871), printed in London for Strahan...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Dating the publication of Hugh Miller’s The testimony of the rocks (1857)
Assessing the precise publication dates of nineteenth-century books is difficult. Common problems include inadequate, inaccurate and confusing title-page information, and misleading advertisements. It is better to use multiple lines of evidence rather than a single source. The first Scottish and English edition of The testimony of the rocks, by Hugh...Taylor, Michael A ; O’Connor, R ; Overstreet, L K
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Journal article
The unusual printing and publishing arrangements of Hugh Miller (1802–1856)
John Johnstone was an Edinburgh printer and publisher, from 1849 in partnership with Robert Hunter. In 1839, Johnstone and the printer Robert Fairly established a separate firm, Johnstone & Fairly, to publish the Witness, a newspaper edited by the geologist Hugh Miller. The firm became Miller & Fairly in 1844...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Mary Anning of Lyme Regis, and the Great Storm of 1824
During the Great Storm of 1824, the house and fossil shop of Mary Anning (1799-1847), fossil collector of Lyme Regis, in Cockmoil Square, was supposedly flooded. The popular but physically unlikely story is probably based on misreading Anning's report of flooding in her brother Joseph's premises, and copying a tale...Taylor, Michael A
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Book chapter
Hugh Miller’s Palace of Printing
The writer, self-taught geologist and stonemason Hugh Miller (1802-1856) was one of Scotland’s finest nature writers. Born in Cromarty, his works made him a household name, and to this day his lyrical style transports readers to stand beside him at the rock-face. Celebrating his legacy, this anthology brings together prose...Taylor, Michael A
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Other
Memoir on Hugh Miller (1802–1856) by his son Hugh Miller (1850–1896) in "Calotypes by D. O. Hill and R. Adamson: illustrating an early stage in the development of photography. Selected from his collection by Andrew Elliot", 1928. Transcribed and annotated by Michael A. Taylor 2017.
Memoir on Hugh Miller (1802–1856) by his son Hugh Miller (1850–1896) in "Calotypes by D. O. Hill and R. Adamson: illustrating an early stage in the development of photography. Selected from his collection by Andrew Elliot". Printed for private circulation, Edinburgh, 1928. (pages 13-18). Transcribed and annotated by Michael. A....Miller, Hugh ; Taylor, Michael A
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Book
Scotland’s beginnings: Scotland through time.
Did you know that Scotland began under an iceberg-laden sea near the South Pole hundreds of millions of years ago? The journey north of the land we now call Scotland is an astounding tale of great mountains, subtropical rainforests, coral reefs, howling deserts, ammonite-inhabited seas, high lava plateaus and scouring...Taylor, Michael A ; Kitchener, Andrew C
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Book
Hugh Miller: stonemason, geologist, writer
Hugh Miller was born in 1802 in Cromarty, Ross-shire. He started his working life as a stonemason’s apprentice; he later became a social commentator and crusader. His was a household name in his lifetime, not only in Scotland but across the English-speaking world. A recent revival in Scottish history and...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
A very local hero
Profiles 19th century amateur palenteologist Hugh Miller. His discoveries of fossils in the Firth of Cromarty in Scotland; Notice of his fossils by the paleontologist Louis Agassiz, and recognition Miller received by Agassiz; His life in Scotland; His decision to drop out of high school to become a stonemason and...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Hugh Miller's collection - a memorial to a great geological Scot
Some would argue that Hugh Miller's greatest memorial lies in his writings and his enduring reputation. Nevertheless, as well as the Nelson's Column style monument overlooking his birthplace cottage preserved by the National Trust for Scotland at Cromarty, he also enjoys four other statues or portrait busts. Appropriately for an...Taylor, Michael A ; Gostwick, M
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Journal article
The Hugh Miller Museum in 1902
Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Further information on the life of Charles Moore (1815-1881), Somerset geologist.
Copp et al. (1999) published an account of the life and work of Charles Moore, the Victorian amateur geologist whose fine collection is now held mainly by the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and the Somerset County Museum, Taunton. This note aims to amend and extend some information in...Torrens, H. S. ; Taylor, Michael A
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Book chapter
Miller's most important geological discovery’: Archibald Geikie (1835–1924) as pupil and memorialist of Hugh Miller (1802–56)
Hugh Miller, stonemason turned writer, newspaper editor and geologist, became the young Archibald Geikie’s friend and geological mentor, encouraged his first research and presentation to a learned society, and recommended him to the Geological Survey, thus laying the foundations for a career that reached the top of British science. Geikie...Taylor, Michael A
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Book chapter
Autobiography and documentable fact in the family background and religious affiliation of Archibald Geikie (1835–1924)
In his autobiography of 1924, Archibald Geikie (1835–1924) suppressed basic information about his family and religious beliefs. Investigation reveals a more complete picture of those aspects of Geikie’s life. He was brought up in a strongly religious family, of Congregational affiliation, which he himself followed as a young man. His...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Charles W. Peach, palaeobotany and Scotland
The move south from Wick to the city of Edinburgh in 1865, some four years after retirement from the Customs service, provided Charles W. Peach with new opportunities for fossil-collecting and scientific networking. Here he renewed and maintained his interest in natural history and made significant palaeobotanical collections from the...Anderson, Lyall I ; Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Country Reports. United Kingdom. INHIGEO.
Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
The Victorian Sunday, daylight and naturalists
Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
J.G. Goodchild's Guide to the Geological Collections in the Hugh Miller cottage, Cromarty of 1902
This reproduces, in facsimile, the Guide to the Geological Collections in the Hugh Miller cottage, Cromarty of 1902 by J.G. Goodchild.Taylor, Michael A ; Anderson, Lyall I ; Goodchild, J G
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Journal article
Guide to the Hugh Miller collection in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, c. 1920
Around 1920, the retired Geological Survey worker Benjamin Neeve Peach (1842-1926) wrote a guide to the permanent exhibition, which he had just completed, of fossils from the collection of Hugh Miller (1802-1856) in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh (now part of National Museums Scotland). This guide also incorporated an older...Peach, Benjamin N ; Traquair, Ramsay H ; Taylor, Michael A ; Anderson, Lyall I
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Journal article
The first known stereophotographs of Hugh Miller's cottage and the building of the Hugh Miller Monument, Cromarty, 1859
Two early stereophotographs of Hugh Miller's cottage at Cromarty have separate provenances and their original photographer is unknown, but they were apparently taken at the same session and from almost the same location. One shows the Hugh Miller Monument under construction. The monument's planning, funding and building are outlined. It...Taylor, Michael A ; Morrison-Low, A D
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Journal article
The museums of a local, national and supranational hero: Hugh Miller's collections over the decades
Hugh Miller (1802-1856), Scottish geologist, newspaper editor and writer, is a perhaps unique example of a geologist with a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace cottage, in Cromarty, northern Scotland. He finally housed his geological collection, principally of Scottish fossils, in a purpose-built museum at his house in Portobello,...Taylor, Michael A ; Anderson, Lyall I
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Journal article
The appeal circular for the purchase of Hugh Miller's collection, 1858
This reproduces, in facsimile, the only known copy of the Proposal to Purchase the Museum of the Late Hugh Miller for deposition in the Natural History Museum (later part of the National Museums Scotland). It is datable on internal evidence to 1858. This particular copy belonged to Charles W. Peach...Taylor, Michael A ; Anderson, Lyall I
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Journal article
Tennyson and the geologists part 2: saurians and the Isle of Wight
It is often observed that Tennyson’s poetry was profoundly influenced by his reading in astronomy, geology and science in general, and evolutionary thought before and after Darwin. This reflected the period’s intense crossover between science and what would today be called literature. The scientific paper was approaching its modern format,...Taylor, Michael A ; Anderson, Lyall I
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Journal article
Country Reports. United Kingdom. INHIGEO.
Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
‘Where is the damned collection?’ Charles Davies Sherborn’s listing of named natural science collections and its successors. In: Michel E. (Ed) Anchoring Biodiversity Information: from Sherborn to the 21st century and beyond
C. D. Sherborn published in 1940, under the imprint of Cambridge University Press but at his own expense, Where is the – Collection? This idiosyncratic listing of named natural science collections, and their fates, was useful, but incomplete, and uneven in its accuracy. It is argued that those defects were...Taylor, Michael A
museum, biology, Charles Davies Sherborn, taxonomy, collections, and geology
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Journal article
Keith Leask and his biography of Hugh Miller
Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Mrs Alicia Moore, dedicatee of Henry Rowland Brown’s 1859 guidebook Beauties of Lyme Regis
The 1859 second edition of the guidebook The Beauties of Lyme Regis, by Henry Rowland Brown (1837-1921) of Lyme Regis, was dedicated to ‘Mrs Moore’. She is identified here as Alicia Anne Moore née Radford (bap. 1790-1873), Sheffield-born author and novelist, who was descended from the Lymen (or Leman or...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
A token found at Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, apparently associated with Mary Anning (1799–1847), fossil collector
A lettered metal disc bearing the date 1810 and found on the beach at Lyme Regis appears, but cannot conclusively be proven, to be a childhood possession of the young Mary Anning (1799–1847), later the famous fossil collector whose name and age it bears. An alternative, but problematical, possibility is...Taylor, Michael A ; Bull, Richard
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Journal article
The anatomy of Stratesaurus (Reptilia, Plesiosauria) from the lowermost Jurassic of Somerset, United Kingdom
We provide a complete description of one of the oldest plesiosaurians, Stratesaurus taylori from the earliest Hettangian of the United Kingdom. At least 25 apomorphies distinguish S. taylori from the sympatric Thalassiodracon hawkinsii, to which all three specimens of S. taylori were originally referred. Several features of the skull of...Benson, Roger B J ; Evans, Mike ; Taylor, Michael A
digital data, phenotype, visualization, functional analysis, three-dimensional models, and computed tomography
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Journal article
Joseph Clark III's reminiscences about the Somerset fossil reptile collector Thomas Hawkins (1810-1889): " Very near the borderline between eccentricity and criminal insanity"
An account of Thomas Hawkins (1810-1889) of Glastonbury has been located in the memoirs of Joseph Clark III at the Clark Archive, Street. It is transcribed and published. It provides a valuable perspective on the character and life of this important fossil collector.Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Letter, on commemorative plaques and Hugh Miller
Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Palaeontological site conservation and the professional collector
Professional (i.e. commercial) fossil collectors can and do use sites responsibly. They benefit palaeontology by finding new fossils. Control of this collecting is counterproductive on eroding coasts and new exposures opened up by such collectors. Irresponsible professional collectors are not a major cause of damage compared to other collectors, quarry...Taylor, Michael A
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Journal article
Palaeontological site conservation and the law in Britain
The legal situation regarding palaeontological site conservation in Britain is unclear. There is no modern review of the law. Five main areas of concern are identified. Most exsisting laws do not specifically consider the needs of palaeontological conservation. Legislation empowers the Nature Conservancy Council upon policy decisions. The NCC is...Taylor, Michael A ; Harte, J D C
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Journal article
Hugh Miller (1802-1856): lost papers
Taylor, Michael A ; Anderson, Lyall I
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