William Pengelly, FRS FGS (12 January 1812 – 16 March 1894) was a British geologist and early archaeologist who was one of the first to contribute proof that the Biblical chronology of the earth calculated by Archbishop James Ussher was incorrect.
Born at East Looe in Cornwall, the son of a sea captain, he left school at the age of 12 to join his father's crew. Returning to Looe while still in his teens, he spent his time reading widely and learning mathematics. In about 1836 he moved to Torquay and opened a day school teaching according to the fashionable Pestalozzian method. In 1846 he gave up his successful school to become a private tutor and also started lecturing on various scientific subjects - a career he continued for the rest of his life.
Pengelly published his first scientific paper in 1849, on fossil fish found in East Cornwall. This was the first of some 120 papers on geology, paleontology and human prehistory he would publish. In 1862 Pengelly reviewed the geology of the Tertiary lignite deposits of Bovey Tracey in an important paper read to the Royal Society, and the following year was elected a fellow of the society.
Pengelly's desire to educate led him to found the Torquay Young Men's Society (later the Torquay Mechanics' Institute), the Torquay Natural History Society, and (in 1862) the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art (now The Devonshire Association). He also contributed papers to the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall.[1]
Pengelly married his cousin, Mary Ann Mudge, in 1838. They had three children, before she died in 1851. Two years later he married Lydia Spriggs, a member of a Quaker family, and had two daughters. The younger, Hester, became his biographer. Hester became a writer and, in 1902, married Henry Forbes Julian, a mining engineer, founder of the Royal Automobile Club and co-writer of Cyaniding Gold and Silver Ores. Juian went down with the Titanic.
Pengelly's most significant contribution to science was his work on caves in Devon and their human occupation. He excavated at Kents Cavern in Devon following earlier work done by Father John MacEnery. He found similar evidence (Palaeolithic flint tools and the bones of extinct animals in the same strata) as MacEnery, but had the advantage working in a time of more open geological and religious thinking, which enabled him to find support and funding for the publication of his and MacEnery's work.
Pengelly found similar evidence in other caves, and under the auspices of the Royal Society and the Geological Society, he and Sir John Evans were able to conduct a scientific investigation into British prehistory. Their work, along with that of pioneers such as Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes, produced reasoned argument against the traditional Biblical chronology.