Sir Charles Lyell 1797 - 1875

1816 - entered Exeter College as a fellow-commoner. 1819 - graduated BA with a respectable second class in classical honours. 1821 - graduated MA. Met Gideon Mantell. 1822 - called to the bar. 1823 - elected a secretary of the Geological Society of London. 1824 - joined the new Athenaeum. 1826 - following his father's disapproval, returned to legal work in London and in the west of England. 1827 - read and was fascinated by the evolutionary speculations of Jean Baptiste de Lamarck. 1828 - joined Roderick Murchison for a fieldwork tour on the continent. 1830 - the first volume of Principles of Geology published. 1831 - appointed professor of geology at the new King's College in London. 1832 - the second volume of Principles of Geology published. 1833 - the third and final volume of Principles of Geology published. 1834 - travelled in Scandinavia, becoming convinced that the land around the Baltic had risen insensibly slowly and without earthquakes, even within recorded history. 1835-1837 - served as president of the Geological Society. 1836 - mentored the young Charles Darwin. 1838 - Elements of Geology published. 1845 - following a lecture tour of America, Travels in North America published. 1848 - knighted. 1863 - Antiquity of Man published following the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. 1864 - created a baronet. 1866 - received the Wollaston medal, the Geological Society's highest award.