‘Our favourite science’: Lord Bute and James Parkinson searching for a Theory of the Earth

Abstract

AbstractJohn Stuart, the third earl of Bute and the British Prime Minister from 1762 to 1763, and the apothecary surgeon James Parkinson both amassed large and important geological collections; both believed in the biblical Deluge; both admired the work of Jean André de Luc; and both were fascinated by the study of geology. Each sought a theory that would explain the geological phenomena they observed but which also allowed them to maintain their religious integrity. They were men of their time, struggling to come to terms with a new science that challenged their strongly held religious beliefs. Bute's Observations on the Natural History of the Earth, never published, provides us with a snapshot of his thinking about prevailing theories of the Earth. He dismissed all except those that fitted the geological facts as understood at the time, but was nevertheless unable to progress from a rigid belief in the biblical Flood having been a miracle. Parkinson's Organic Remains of a Former World reveals a man fully conversant with contemporary geological ideas being propounded elsewhere in Europe. Also highly religious, Parkinson oscillated between his deeply held beliefs and the contradictory evidence provided by the fossils he held in his hand.