Two hundred years ago …

Friday 12th August 2022

Summer 1822

On the surface, very little seems to be happening in relation to the Kirkdale fossils, or at least nothing that enters the public domain.  Apart from sporadic commentaries on William Buckland’s Royal Society article, the only information in the press (Yorkshire Gazette, 3rd August) is that “Professors Buckland and Sedgwick, Sir Humphrey Davy, and many other scientific men, have lately been examining the Kirkdale Cave, and the animal remains that are collected in the neighbourhood”. We can safely assume that William Salmond, who felt rather proprietorial about the cave, was of the party.

The future founders of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society – Messrs Salmond, Atkinson, and Thorpe – will undoubtedly have been comparing and envying each other’s collections of Kirkdale fossils and turning their thoughts towards their future. And some years later, in a letter to Lord Milton, William Vernon Harcourt recalled that William Buckland had suggested to him “to deposit these remains in a public Museum”: this would have been some time during the summer of 1822.   But specific evidence is lacking.

In the meantime over the next few weeks, before events gather pace, we can perhaps look more closely at the triumvirate: Anthony Thorpe, James Atkinson, and William Salmond …