Sydney Savory Buckman (3 April 1860, in Cirencester – 26 February 1929) was a British

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

and

stratigrapher Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers ( strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostrat ...

. He is known for his studies of extinct marine invertebrates, especially the Brachiopoda and

Ammonoidea Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttle ...

of the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

era ( Ma (million years ago)).

Biography

Buckman was the eldest son of

James Buckman James Buckman (November 20, 1814 – November 23, 1884) was a British pharmaceutical chemist, professor, museum curator, botanist, geologist, archaeologist, author and farmer. Life Buckman was professor of geology, botany, and zoology at the Roy ...

(1814-1884), Professor of Geology, Botany, and Zoology at the Royal Agricultural College 1848-1863, and his wife Julia (1834–1865). His first scientific paper (which related to Brachiopoda) was published in 1883, in the ''Proceedings of the Dorsetshire Natural History Field Club''. He was a prolific author. He showed that ammonites could be used as index fossils to subdivide the Jurassic strata. His major work, ''A Monograph of the Ammonites of the "Inferior Oolite Series"'' (never really completed), was published in several volumes by 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 ...

1887-1907. He described numerous

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

and

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of marine

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 ...

. During his lifetime, he gained a reputation as a " splitter". His obituary in ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'' says that through his studies he "was led to create a multitude of genera and species far beyond what had hitherto been deemed necessary". In 1897 he was awarded the

Murchison Fund The Murchison Fund is an award given by the Geological Society of London to researchers under the age of 40 who have contributed substantially to the study of hard rock and tectonic geology. It is named in honour of Prof. Roderick Impey Murchison. ...

by the

Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

. From 1897 to at least 1899, Sydney and his wife Maude were active in the early modern

feminist movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality b ...

, promoting practical clothing for women through organisations such as the Western Rational Dress Movement and Cycling for Women. He was awarded the Lyell Medal by the Geological Society in 1913.

Posthumous reputation

His reputation as an over-zealous splitter seems to have been justified. As one example, a 1966 analysis of his observations on '' Sonninia'' (a genus of ammonite in family

Sonniniidae Sonniniidae is a diverse family of Middle Jurassic ammonites ranging from those with stout evolute shells to those whose shells are sharply rimmed, oxyconic. The keel, which runs along the middle of the venter, is typically hollow. Sutures vary f ...

) reduced 70 species down to two. His splitting has been called "extreme". He seems also to have argued on what was, according to the modern scientific consensus, the wrong side of the ontogeny vs. phylogeny debate. That reputation hindered recognition of his contributions to

chronostratigraphy Chronostratigraphy is the branch of stratigraphy that studies the ages of rock strata in relation to time. The ultimate aim of chronostratigraphy is to arrange the sequence of deposition and the time of deposition of all rocks within a geologica ...

. In 1995, J. H. Callomon acknowledged their significance. In 1996, Peter Doyle wrote, "Buckman's original work involved a high degree of precision in collecting and measurement of stratigraphical sections which demonstrated the potential for the high-resolution scheme he later constructed. Although Buckman's later excesses cast doubt on the accuracy of this work, detailed observations have shown it to be broadly correct and of great importance in long-distance correlation with North America, for example. Clearly, the excesses of Buckman's later theorising have long held back an important contribution to detailed, high-resolution ammonite biostratigraphy". In 1997, H. S. Torrens re-assessed and vindicated Buckman's work.

Publications

Several of his many publications are available online through the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Buckman, Sydney Savory 1860 births 1929 deaths Place of death missing English palaeontologists Amateur paleontologists English geologists People from Cirencester Lyell Medal winners