William Smith
Smith, William (1769-1839) was an English geologist and is widely viewed as the founder of English geology. He was the first to recognize a regular succession in the strata, or horizontal layers, of the earth's crust of England. He was also the first to recognize that many individual beds contained fossils particular only to that layer and that fossils could help determine the relative age of the different strata.
Smith had little formal education. He became an assistant to a surveyor at 18, at a time when canals were being planned and dug throughout England. He also traveled the countryside, adding to his knowledge. In 1793, he began supervising the surveying of the Somerset Coal Canal near Bath. While engaged in this project, Smith noted the regular succession of the rock strata. He determined in greater precision than previously noted the succession of English strata across the entire country, and his observation that the fossils found at deeper layers differed dramatically from those found at shallow layers gave early indications of the evolutionary process. Smith was also the first to create geological maps, beginning in 1799. In developing a type of map showing outcrops in block, he established a standard for geological cartography that lasted until the 1900's.
Because of his lack of education, Smith was virtually ignored by the geological community for most of his life, which frustrated him and left him impoverished from supporting his own research. He was afforded some notice when he finally began publishing his work in 1816, but it wasn't until 1831 that he was fully acknowledged for his tremendous contribution to the science of geology. That year he was awarded the Geological Society of London's first Wollaston Medal, a prize that was created in his honor.