Arthur Smith Woodward
Encyclopedia
Sir Arthur Smith Woodward (23 May 1864 – 2 September 1944) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 palaeontologist.

Biography

Woodward was born in Macclesfield
Macclesfield
Macclesfield is a market town within the unitary authority of Cheshire East, the county palatine of Chester, also known as the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The population of the Macclesfield urban sub-area at the time of the 2001 census was 50,688...

, Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, England and was educated there and at Owens College, Manchester. He joined the staff of the Department of Geology at the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...

 in 1882. He became assistant Keeper of Geology in 1892, and Keeper in 1901. He was appointed Secretary of the Palaeontographical Society and in 1904, was appointed
President of the Geological Society. He was elected in June 1901 a Fellow of the Royal Society 

He was the world expert on fossil fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, writing his Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum (1889–1901). His travels included journeys to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. In 1901, for the trustees of the Natural History Museum, he made excavations of fossil bones from Pikermi
Pikermi
Pikermi is a town and a former community of Attica, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rafina-Pikermi, of which it is a municipal unit....

 (near Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

). His contribution to palaeoichthyology resulted in him receiving many awards, including a Royal Medal
Royal Medal
The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal, is a silver-gilt medal awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge" and one for "distinguished contributions in the applied sciences" made within the Commonwealth of...

 from the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 in 1917, the Lyell
Lyell Medal
The Lyell Medal is a prestigious annual scientific medal given by the Geological Society of London, equal in status to the Murchison Medal, awarded on the basis of research to an Earth Scientist of exceptional quality...

 and Wollaston Medal
Wollaston Medal
The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...

s of the Geological Society, the Linnean Medal
Linnean Medal
The Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London was established in 1888, and is awarded annually to alternately a botanist or a zoologist or to one of each in the same year...

 of the Linnean Society and the Clarke Medal
Clarke Medal
The Clarke Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of New South Wales for distinguished work in the Natural sciences.Named in honour of the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, one of the founders of the Society...

 of the Royal Society of New South Wales
Royal Society of New South Wales
The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. It was established as the Philosophical Society of Australasia on 27 June 1821...

 in 1914. He retired from the museum in 1924. In 1942 Woodward was awarded the Mary Clark Thompson Medal
Mary Clark Thompson Medal
The Mary Clark Thompson Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for most important service to geology and paleontology." Named after Mary Clark Thompson, it was first awarded in 1921.- List of Mary Clark Thompson Medal winners :...

 from the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

.

Woodward's reputation suffered from his involvement in the Piltdown Man
Piltdown Man
The Piltdown Man was a hoax in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. These fragments consisted of parts of a skull and jawbone, said to have been collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, East Sussex, England...

 hoax where he gave a name to a new species of hominid from southern England, which was ultimately discovered (after Woodward's death) to have been a forgery.

He married Maud Eleanora Seeley, the daughter of zoologist Harry Govier Seeley, in 1894.

External links

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