JOSHUA

See also:

• JOSHUA TRIMMER (1795-1857)

TRIMMER (1795-1857)  , English geologist, was born at North Cray in Kent, on the 11th of July 1795 . He was son of Joshua Kirby Trimmer of Brentford, and grandson of Mrs Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810), authoress of the Story of the Robins (1786) . At the age of nineteen he was sent to North Wales to manage a copper-mine for his father; subsequently he was placed in charge of a farm in Middlesex, where the acquired a knowledge of and an interest in soils; in 1825 he became manager (for his father) of slate quarries near Bangor and Carnarvon, and in this district he remained for many years . He discovered the marine shells in the drift of Moel Tryfaen . During the years 1850-1854 he was engaged on the Geological Survey, and surveyed parts of the New Forest in Hampshire . He died in London on the 16th of September 1817 . He published memoirs on the Origin of the Soils which cover the Chalk of Kent; On the Geology of Norfolk, as Illustrating the Laws of the Distribution of Soils (1847); and Proposals for a Geological Survey, specially directed to Agricultural Objects (185o); in this respect he was a pioneer in agricultural geology . He was author also of a useful work Practical Geology and Mineralogy (1841) . Obituary by J . E . Portlock, in Quart . Journ .

Geol .

Soc . (1858) .