Description

[003702] [Geological Society of France]. Societe Geologique de France – Membership Certificate. Paris: Firmin Didot, 1836. First Edition. 4to (Oblong). Unbound. Certificate. Good. Printed certificate, edges mounted on linen which is stretched and pinned over a light wood bearer, approximately 365mm x 260mm in size.

Heavily browned, slightly chipped to edges, lightly foxed with ink spot towards the right hand edge, some writing in pencil to reverse.

Early, the Society was formed in 1830, membership certificate, for a Mr. Gilbertson, probably William Gilbertson of Preston (1788-1845), a pharmaceutical chemist and keen collector of fossils, some of whose collection was used by John Phillips to illustrate his monograph Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire.

Gilbertson’s collection of fossils “suffered a convoluted fate. In 1841 at least some of it was purchased by the Zoological Branch of the then Natural History Department of the British Museum, (now the Natural History Museum) by the recently appointed Keeper of the Zoological Branch, J E Gray. Its housing stimulated much debate. Gray insisted that fossil organisms should be studied and housed along with living counterparts and resolved this debate in a very straightforward way by one day taking the collection and moving it all to his branch! As with many historical collections in the NHM, the specimens from the Gilbertson Collection were gradually re-numbered and re-labelled by a number of different curators before being fully incorporated into the general collection. When the museum was moved to its new quarters in South Kensington in 1882, the collection again changed hands and ended up in the Geology Department, now the Department of Palaeontology” (Geological Society Website)