Simon Winchester - The Map that Changed the World

A couple of years ago I was visiting the Cotswolds, and by chance found myself in the village of Churchill. There me and my partner encountered an suitably massive memorial to the "father of British geology" William Smith. You can see a photo I took below. Despite a general interest in geology I knew little about Smith, but determined to find out. As these things go, I immediately forgot to do that, until about a year later I was again in the Cotswolds and in a second hand bookshop when I chanced upon Simon Winchester's book. Ironically I was there to hear another geologist, Richard Fortey, speak.

Winchester's book is not a straight biography. Instead it focuses on William Smith's greatest achievement, a strata map of the British Isles. Smith grew up in Churchill where he was the son of a blacksmith but had an abiding interest in stones and fossils. Having an aptitude for mathematics he became a surveyor and his skills led him, despite his youth, to be given substantial commissions. One of these was the surveying of the coal field near Bath. As he descended into the mines, and after talking to miners, Smith realised that there was a regular sequence of strata down through the Earth - layers of different types of rock, seams of coal and so on. These, he eventually came to understand, could be identified by different fossils and formed a pattern across the landscape. 

Smith clearly was a genius when it came to geology. Despite his working class background he quickly found himself employed surveying the route for a new canal that would bring coal from Somerset to urban centres. This allowed him to indulge his personal hobby of studying locations of strata, and the trips that he did to examine other canals gave him opportunities to do the same across the country. Being a geological genius did not extend to other talents, and once unemployed he found himself earning a living as a successful freelance surveyor, but overextended his spending and quickly found himself in debt. Desperate to produce a strata map of England, he bought multiple properties in order to live the life associated with a man of science. Eventually, just as his map finally appeared, and when many of his wealthy sponsors had given up, he found himself in debtors prison.

Then, in a move that seems inconceivable today, the gentlemen backers of the Geological Society stole his map and produced their own version. No doubt they thought they could get away with it in the face of the lowly Smith.

Winchester's book is beautifully written and feels like a novel. The geological information is explained clearly, but what makes it stand out is the way that Winchester is able to place Smith's genius in the context of his times. Britain's industrialisation, indeed the agricultural revolution taking place in Churchill, meant that Smith's ideas fitted exactly into the needs of the emerging industrial economy. Had Smith been born twenty-five years earlier, he may well have developed ideas about strata and geology, but they wouldn't have caught on because he would not have found himself in the midst of the coal and canal boom. 

The book's novel like structure succeeds, because there is a rather happy ending. By chance, after Smith had left London in despair, his ideas found a new champion and the Geological society's injustice was reversed. Smith was given a decent pension by the government, feted by the new scientific community and welcomed back with open arms by a new generation. This new generation of geologists were much closer to the scientific community of today, rather than gentlemen thinkers. Yet Smith didn't quite fit into this either - he was unable to get to grips with new science and others took up his mantle. 

Winchester's book is readable, and its subject both human and geological fascinating. I wish I'd had a chance to read it while exploring the Cotswolds, and encourage anyone going down that way to get hold of a copy. It will bring the landscape to life, perhaps similar to the way that William Smith pictured what lay beneath.

Related Reviews

Winchester - Krakatoa
Fortey - The Earth: An Intimate History