Henry William Crosskey (7 December 1826 – 1 October 1893) was an English Unitarian minister and

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

. Crosskey was born at

Lewes Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

. After being trained for the ministry at Manchester New College (1843–1848), he became pastor of Friargate chapel,

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

, until 1852, when he accepted charge of a Unitarian congregation in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

.Armstrong 1895, p. 57. In 1869 he moved to

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, where he remained as pastor of the Church of the Messiah until his death. While in Glasgow his interest was awakened in geology by the perusal of A. C. Ramsay's ''Geology of the Isle of Arran'', and from 1855 onwards he devoted his leisure to the pursuit of this science. He became an authority on glacial geology, and wrote much, especially in conjunction with David Robertson, on the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

iferous beds of Scotland (''Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow''). He also prepared for the British Association a valuable series of ''Reports'' (1873–1892) on the erratic ''Blocks of England, Wales and Ireland''. In conjunction with David Robertson and

George Stewardson Brady George Stewardson Brady (18 April 1832 – 25 December 1921) was a professor of natural history at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle-upon-Tyne who did important volumes on Copepoda and Ostracoda, including those from the ''Challenger'' expediti ...

(1832–1921) he wrote the ''Monograph of the Post Tertiary Entomostraca of Scotland'', etc. for the

Palaeontographical Society The Palaeontographical Society is a learned society, established in 1847, and is the oldest extant Society devoted to the advancement of palaeontological knowledge. The Society publishes monographs that further its primary purpose, which is to pro ...

(1874); and he edited

Henry Carvill Lewis Henry Carvill Lewis (November 16, 1853 – July 21, 1888) was an American geologist and mineralogist. Career Lewis was born in Philadelphia on November 16, 1853, and was educated at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Masters of Arts ...

's ''Papers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain and Ireland'', issued posthumously (1894). He died at

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is an affluent suburban area of central Birmingham, England, historically in Warwickshire, and curved around the southwest of the city centre. In the 19th century, the area was under the control of the Gough-Calthorpe family an ...

, Birmingham, on 1 October 1893.

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