John Jeremiah Bigsby MD. FRGS (1792 - 1881)

Born 14 Aug 1792 in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England

Ancestors

Died 10 Feb 1881 at age 88 in Portman Square, London, England

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Biography

John Jeremiah Bigsby MD, FRS, FGS, FRGS, was an English physician, alderman and mayor of Newark-on-Trent, who became known for his work on geology, an interest developed while on military service in Lower and Upper Canada between 1818-1826. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society. He is known for founding the Bigsby Medal in 1877.

Background

He was the eldest son of John Bigsby (1760-1844) MD, FRCP of Clareborough Cottage, East Retford, Nottinghamshire, and Mary (died 1821), only daughter of John Chamberlin (died 1815) JP of Red Hill, High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1789. He was baptised on 14 August 1792. Bigsby Road in Retford was named for his family.

Education

Like his father, John Jeremiah Bigsby was educated at Edinburgh University where he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1814. That year he published his thesis and became a physician at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. In 1816 he joined the British Army as an assistant surgeon and was stationed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1817. The following year, he was appointed medical officer to a German Rifle Regiment in the English service and posted with them to British North America. He was stationed at Quebec City but was sent to Hawkesbury in Upper Canada to treat a typhus epidemic among Irish immigrants.

Geology

He developed a great interest in geology and was commissioned in 1819 to report on the geology of Upper Canada. He was the first person to investigate and describe the Oak Ridges Moraine. In 1822 he was appointed British secretary and medical officer to the Boundary Commission, and for several years he made extensive and important geological researches, contributing papers to the American Journal of Science and other scientific journals; and later embodying an account of his travels in a book entitled The Shoe and Canoe (1850).

Return to England

Returning to England in 1827 he practised medicine at Newark-on-Trent until 1846 when he removed to London, where he remained until the end of his life. He was Alderman and Mayor of Newark-upon-Trent from 1827-1830.

Geological Society

He now took an active interest in the Geological Society of London, of which he had been elected a fellow in 1823. In 1869 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1874 he was awarded the Murchison Medal by the council of the Geological Society of London.

Later years

During the last twenty years of his long life he was continually at work preparing, after the most painstaking research, tabulated lists of the fossils of the Palaeozoic rocks. His Thesaurus Siluricus was published with the aid of the Royal Society in 1868; and the Thesaurus Devonico-Carboniferus in 1878.

The Bigsby Medal

In 1877 he founded the Bigsby Medal to be awarded by the Geological Society of London, with the stipulation that the receiver should not be more than forty-five years old.

Death

He died in London on 10 February 1881.

Sources

Wikipedia, John Jeremiah Bigsby [1]