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HENWOOD, WILLIAM JORY (1805-1875), English mining geologist, was born at Perron Wharf, Cornwall, on the 16th of January 18o5. In 182 2 he commenced work as a clerk in a mining office, and soon took an active interest in the working of mines and in the metalliferous deposits. In 1832 he was appointed to the office of assay-master and supervisor of tin in the duchy of Cornwall, a post from which he retired in 1838. Meanwhile fie. had commenced in 1826 to communicate papers on mining subjects to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, and the Geological Society of London, and in 184o he was elected F.R.S. In 1843 he went to take charge of the Gongo-Soco mines in Brazil ; afterwards he proceeded to India to report on certain metalliferous deposits for the Indian government; and in 1858, impaired in health, he retired and settled at Penzance. His most important memoirs on the metalliferous deposits of Cornwall and Devon were published in 1843 by the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall. At a much later date he communicated with enlarged
experience a second series of Observations on Metalliferous Deposits, and on Subterranean Temperature (reprinted from Trans. R. Geol. Soc. Cornwall, 2 vols., 1871). In 1874 he contributed a paper on the Detrital Tin-ore of Cornwall (Journ. R. Inst. Cornwall). The Murchison medal of the Geological Society was awarded to him in 1875, and the mineral Henwoodite was named after him. He died at Penzance on the 5th of August 1875.