Exhibition leads Theresa Thompson to reveal her love of rock

Colourful patterns weave their way over the aged open pages.

At first glance it seems you are looking at beautiful hand-marbled paper like that on the inside covers of antiquarian books.

Yet, in fact, the painted strands on this historic map of 1815 denote the layers of rocks that run across the land in England and Wales.

Two hundred years ago William Smith published this famous map, the first geological map of England and Wales, a stunning, ground-breaking piece of work that remains important to this day.

It is now on view at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, forming the centrepiece of Handwritten in stone: the life and legacy of William Smith, an exhibition celebrating the man and the bicentenary of the map’s publication.

The map, in the Museum’s upper east gallery newly transformed into exhibition space, is open at the page that covers our part of England: the section that runs from the mouth of the Severn, across the Cotswolds, past Oxford, and finishes in the Aylesbury Vale.

This is William Smith’s part of England too.

For the “father of geology” was born in the village of Churchill, Oxfordshire, in 1769, the son of the local blacksmith, and attended the local school until the age of 11, receiving the only formal education he ever would have. Early on, however, the young William began to be fascinated with the landscape around him and the earth beneath him.

Eventually, working for his uncle and then at Stow on the Wold, he developed the skills in civil engineering, surveying, and land valuation that in time would lead him to form his own observations of the rock layers, and see the need to publish his findings as a map.

“Our exhibition is very much a narrative, telling the story of William Smith, what led him to decide to make a geological map, and its legacy,” said exhibition curator Kate Diston, the museum’s archivist and librarian. Diston has been working on the William Smith archive since 2012, opening up the collection and digitising it.

She said: “This exhibition is different to others held elsewhere this 200th anniversary year.

“It’s based on our William Smith archive, which is the biggest archive by far.” “There are about 120 versions of his 1815 map existing.

“We have three of them.

“Smith was the first person to discover which strata could be found underground in a given area.

“He realised that wealthy landowners would want to know this, and so, published hand-coloured lithograph-based maps that he would sign off if satisfied with them.

“Smith had been poor. He was driven by science but was aware of the financial rewards. He also wanted to be remembered,” Diston said.

“In 1799 he made an earlier geological map, of Bath, which arguably is the oldest geological map in the world, and that is on show too.”

The exhibition does not confine itself to celebrated maps.

It also includes Smith’s personal papers, drawings, publications, maps and geological sections, publicly displayed for the first time, and displays of fossil material from the Museum’s collections and is on in Oxford until January 31, 2016.

A programme of events includes regular volunteer-led spotlight activities, and a day school on how to read geological maps.

Visit oum.ox.ac.uk

Where and when
Handwritten in stone
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, until January 31