WILLIAM

See also:

• DANIEL
• DANIEL (DANIL)
• DANIEL, BOOK
• DANIEL, GABRIEL (1649-1728)

DANIEL

See also:

• WILLIAM DANIEL CONYBEARE (1787–1857)
• CONYBEARE, WILLIAM JOHN (1815–1857)

CONYBEARE (1787–1857)  , dean of Llandaff, one of the most distinguished of English geologists, who was born in London on the 7th of June 1787, was a grandson of John Conybeare, bishop of Bristol (1692–1755),a notable preacherand divine, and son of Dr William Conybeare, rector of Bishops-gate . Educated first at Westminster school, he went in 18o5 to Christ Church, Oxford, where in 18o8 he took his degree of B.A., with a first in classics and second in mathematics, and proceeded to M.A. three years later . Having entered holy orders he became in 1814 curate of Wardington, near Banbury, and he accepted also a lectureship at Brislington near Bristol . During this period he was one of the founders of the Bristol Philosophical Institution (1822) . He was rector of Sully in Glamorganshire from 1823 to 1836, and vicar of Axminster from 1836 to 1844 . He was appointed Hampton lecturer in 1839, and was instituted to the deanery of Llandaff in 1845 . Attracted to the study of geology by the lectures of Dr John Kidd (q.v.) he pursued the subject with ardour . As soon as he had left college he made extended journeys in Britain and on the continent, and he became one of the early members of the Geological Society . Both Buckland and Sedgwick acknowledged their indebtedness to him for instruction received when they first began to devote attention to geology . To the Transactions of the Geological Society as well as to the Annals of Philosophy and Philosophical Magazine he contributed many geological memoirs . In 1821 he distinguished himself by the description of a skeleton of the Plesiosaurus, discovered by Mary Aiming, and his account has been confirmed in all main points by subsequent researches . Among his most important memoirs is that on the south-western coal district of England,written in conjunction with Dr Buckland, and published in 1824 .

He wrote also on the valley of the

Thames, on Elie de Beaumont's theory of mountain-chains, and on the great landslip which occurred near Lyme Regis in 1839 when he was vicar of Axminster . His principal work, however, is the Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales (1822) ,being a second edition of the small work issued by William Phillips (q.v.) and written in co-operation with that author . The original contributions of Conybeare formed the principal portion of this edition, of which only Part I., dealing with the Carboniferous and newer strata, was published . It affords evidence throughout of the extensive and accurate knowledge possessed by Conybeare; and it exercised a marked influence on the progress of geology in this country . He was a fellow of the Royal Society and a corresponding member of the Institute of France . In 1844 he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London . The loss of his eldest son, W . J . Conybeare, preyed on his mind and hastened his end . He died at Itchenstoke, near Portsmouth, a few months after his son, on the 12th of August 1857 . (Obituary in Gent . Mag .

Sept . 1857, p . 335.) His elder brother JOHN JOSIAS CONYBEARE (1779-1824), also educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and an accomplished scholar, became vicar of Batheaston, and was professor of Anglo-Saxon and afterwards of poetry at Oxford . He likewise was an ardent student of geology and communicated several important papers to the Annals of Philosophy and the Transactions of the Geological Society of London . (Obituary in Ann . Phil. vol. viii., Sept . 1824, p .