Downloaded from http://sp.lyellcollection.org/ by guest on September 25, 2021 Introduction and bibliography MIKE SMITH*, ZERINA JOHANSON, PAUL M. BARRETT & M. RICHTER Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK *Corresponding author (e-mail: [email protected]) Arthur Smith Woodward (1864–1944) was ac- Wegener was proposing his theory of continental knowledged as the world’s foremost authority on drift. It would be almost half a century before fossil fishes during his lifetime and made impor- his theory gained widespread acceptance. Hallam tant contributions to the entire field of vertebrate (1983, p. 135) wrote in Great Geological Contro- palaeontology. He was a dedicated public servant, versies that ‘The American palaeontologist G. G. spending his whole career at the British Museum Simpson noted in 1943 the near unanimity of (Natural History) (now the Natural History Museum, palaeontologists against Wegener’s ideas’. Smith NHM) in London. He served on the council and as Woodward certainly fell into this camp but was president of many of the important scientific socie- more inclined to note that no certainty could yet be ties and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society attached to the palaeontological evidence (Wood- in 1901. He was knighted on retirement from the ward 1935). Scientific theories that we accept today Museum in 1924. were still controversial and intensely debated while Smith Woodward was born on 23 May 1864 in Smith Woodward was alive. Macclesfield, an industrial town in the north Mid- A book that celebrates the life and scientific lands of England. He was the first of four children; career of a great British scientist needs little justifi- a brother John just 16 months his junior was fol- cation. However, nine years after his death, an event lowed by two sisters, Marion and Kate. His father, took place that forced Smith Woodward’s name into Edward, was a partner in a family silk-dying busi- the public consciousness. This was the exposure of ness at a time when Macclesfield was the largest the Piltdown skull and mandible as fakes (Wiener and most important silk finishing centre in the et al. 1953) and not the remains of an ancient hom- world. His mother Margaret (whose maiden name inid as Smith Woodward had believed. That Smith was Smith) was the daughter of a local building Woodward was not the instigator of this fraud is contractor. Arthur’s early interest in natural history without doubt. A greater misfortune, however, is and geology meant dashing his father’s hopes that that there is no conclusive evidence of who did per- he would follow him into the family business. His petrate the fraud, although Charles Dawson is the brother chose a career in electrical engineering, pre- prime suspect. As an unsolved ‘whodunnit’ it still sumably also a disappointment to his father, who attracts attention, far more attention than it deserves. retired early to follow his hobby of photography. It is a good example (but not the only one) of the sci- Smith Woodward was born less than five years entific method correcting errors made by scientists after the publication of Charles Darwin’s seminal and this episode should be laid to rest and allowed work On The Origin of Species (Darwin 1859). to become the historical curiosity that it surely is. In 1882 Smith Woodward commenced his career Partly in response to ‘commemorations’ of the as a palaeontologist and geologist at the British centenary of the first presentation on the Piltdown Museum (Natural History) in London, the beautiful material (Dawson & Woodward 1912), we deci- building on Cromwell Road that had been opened ded to hold a celebration of the 150th anniversary to the public only in the previous year. In those 23 of Smith Woodward’s birth in order to publicize years since the publication of the Origin, the initial the great contribution he made to vertebrate palae- controversy over ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea’ (Den- ontology. A one-day symposium was held at the nett 1995) had subsided somewhat, but there were Natural History Museum on 21 May 2014. Because still many unanswered questions, such as the length Smith Woodward’s influence on fossil fish research of time required for speciation to occur. It would extends to the present, the symposium speakers be 1917 before the first realistic estimates of the were selected to give not just historical accounts true ages of the Phanerozoic Eras were calculated of the man and his science but also accounts of by radiometric dating (Hallam 1983). Just as the how current research connects back to his influence. question of the age of the Earth was being settled, The same approach has been adopted for this From:Johanson, Z., Barrett, P. M., Richter,M.&Smith, M. (eds) Arthur Smith Woodward: His Life and Influence on Modern Vertebrate Palaeontology. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 430, http://doi.org/10.1144/SP430.19, updated version # 2016 The Author(s). Published by The Geological Society of London. All rights reserved. For permissions: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/permissions. Publishing disclaimer: www.geolsoc.org.uk/pub_ethics Downloaded from http://sp.lyellcollection.org/ by guest on September 25, 2021 M. SMITH ET AL. volume, with many of the chapters being written by memoir, it never was and the manuscript has re- presenters at the symposium. mained in the library at the Natural History Museum since it was donated by their daughter Margaret in 1963. This short article introduces the manuscript, Smith Woodward’s life and work: which is now being made available online. historical background Smith Woodward was a precocious child, excelling Smith Woodward’s scientific legacy at school and university (which he left before graduating to join the staff of the Natural History In his essay entitled ‘Smith Woodward’s ideas on Museum) and working hard to establish himself fish classification’, Forey (2015) discusses the theo- at the Museum and in the wider palaeontolog- retical underpinning of Smith Woodward’s Cata- ical community. He was rewarded with numerous logue of Fossil Fishes and the influence that the awards both nationally and internationally. When work of Huxley, Traquair and Cope had on him. he became Keeper of Geology he expected simi- He notes that Smith Woodward ‘had a strong belief lar levels of dedication from those who worked in evolution and also that evolutionary pathways with him and could be a hard taskmaster. These could parallel one another’. With the exponential and other aspects of his life are the subjects of the discovery of new material and the increased spe- paper by Shindler & Smith (2015), ‘“A Splendid cialization of palaeoichthyologists, Peter leaves us Position”: The life, achievements and contradic- with the thought that ‘a modern Catalogue, written tions of Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 1864–1944’. in the same style as that of Smith Woodward, Apart from his published scientific work, Smith would probably extend to 40 volumes, not four’. Woodward’s most important legacy was the devel- The Smith Woodward type specimen of Scle- opment of the fossil fish collection at the Natural rorhynchus atavus is the focus of the paper by History Museum. Unpacking and displaying the Underwood et al. (2015a), entitled ‘Sclerorhynchus fabulous fossil fish collections of the Earl of Ennis- atavus and the convergent evolution of rostrum- killen and Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton led bearing chondrichthyans’. This is the first paper of to his initial interest in palaeoichthyology. The several to use the increasingly popular method of importance of Smith Woodward to the collection microcomputed tomography (mCT) to examine is explored by Smith (2015) in ‘The Natural History parts of the specimen hidden by matrix. Sclerorhyn- Museum fossil fish collection: Smith Woodward’s chids are an extinct group of rays that bore rostra role in the development and use of this priceless similar to those of the modern sawsharks (Pristio- resource’. phoridae) and sawfish (Pristidae). ‘Arthur Smith Woodward’s fossil fish type spec- Fossil shark’s teeth are ubiquitous in the fossil imens’ by Bernard & Smith (2015) documents in record. In this paper by Duffin (2015), entitled detail the 321 species of fossil fish that he described ‘Cochliodonts and chimaeroids: Arthur Smith and named. About two-thirds of these species are Woodward and the holocephalians’, the history of represented in the NHM collection. Specimens people’s fascination with fossil shark’s teeth and were sent from around the world for him to identify early (fanciful) attempts to explain their origins, and describe. In all, he described fossil fishes from are reviewed. Moving on to more scientific explana- 29 countries covering all of the major groups. tions leads to Part I of the Catalogue – which is Smith Woodward travelled widely in the pursuit highly regarded: ‘As a first attempt at a systematic of knowledge of fossil fishes. Following his mar- treatment of fossil chondrichthyans it is most riage in 1894, his wife accompanied him on almost impressive’. Like Forey, Duffin draws attention to all of his excursions abroad. They met and became the dramatic increase in diversity of the fossil record good friends with a wide circle of eminent scientists. since Smith Woodward’s time but also notes that Milner’s (2015) chapter, ‘Lady Smith Woodward’s much of our knowledge of some groups is still tablecloth’, describes a unique record of the people dependent on isolated parts of the dentition and is, that the Smith Woodwards entertained in London therefore, incomplete. and at their retirement home at Haywards Heath in Continuing the chondrichthyan theme is the con- Sussex. tribution from Underwood et al. (2015b), entitled Continuing the theme of Lady Smith Woodward ‘Development of understanding of the Mesozoic is the chapter by Smith & Shindler (2015), entitled and Cenozoic chondrichthyan fossil record’.