Henry Riley (scientist)

Henry Riley (1797–1848)[1] was a British surgeon, anatomist, naturalist, geologist and paleontologist.[2] He is notable for being the co-discoverer and co-describer of the archosaur Palaeosaurus and the dinosaur Thecodontosaurus.[3]

Henry Riley
Undated portrait of Henry Riley
Born1797
Bristol
Died1848 (age 50-51)
Bristol
NationalityEnglish
Known forDiscovery of Palaeosaurus and Thecodontosaurus
Scientific career
FieldsGeology, Natural history, Anatomy

Biography

Henry Riley was born in Bristol in 1797.[4] He trained to become a surgeon in Paris and he graduated during the mid-1820s.[1][5] He was one of the men who founded the Bristol Institution in the 1820s. Riley was involved in a body snatching scandal in the late 1820s - he was fined £6 (inflated to £657.29 in 2019) in 1828. He was later revoked of this claim during the 1830s.

His Geoffroyan lectures of 1831-33 were the first to be heard in Bristol.[1] He was a physician at St. Peter's Hospital, Bristol in 1832 and the Bristol Royal Infirmary between 1834 and 1847.[1] He taught at Bristol Medical School until he retired in 1846.[1]

In the autumn of 1834, Riley[1] and the curator of the Bristol Institution, Samuel Stutchbury, began to excavate "saurian remains" at the quarry of Durdham Down, at Clifton, presently a part of Bristol, which is part of the Magnesian Conglomerate. In 1834 and 1835, they briefly reported on the finds.[6] They provided their initial description in 1836, naming the new genera Palaeosaurus and Thecodontosaurus.[7]

Riley died in 1848 in Bristol, aged 50 or 51.[4]

References
  1. Adrian Desmond (15 April 1992). The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 427. ISBN 978-0-226-14374-3.
  2. "Palaeobiology and Biodiversity Research Group, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol". bristol-dinosaur.gly.bris.ac.uk. Bristol: University of Bristol. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  3. "Bristol City Council : Museum Collections". museums.bristol.gov.uk. Bristol: Bristol City Council. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  4. The Geological Curator, 10 (8). pp. 493-498.
  5. Taylor, Michael A, Torrens, H. S. (2017) - 280. Henry Riley M.D. (1797-1848) of Bristol.
  6. Williams, 1835, "Discovery of Saurian Bones in the Magnesian Conglomerate near Bristol", American Journal of Science and Arts 28: 389
  7. "Dinosaur find marked at cemetery". BBC News. Britain. 17 February 2011. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
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