British geologist, Anglican priest, and one of the founders of modern geology (1785-1873), who proposed the Cambrian and Devonian periods of the geological timescale. Though he had guided the young Charles Darwin in his early study of geology and continued to be on friendly terms, Sedgwick was an opponent of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection. ALS signed "A. Sedgwick," three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.5 x 7, no date. Addressed from Cambridge, a handwritten letter to British botanist and archaeologist Frances Stackhouse Acton, in part: "I remember Acton Scott & its inhabitants with so much pleasure that I should delight to think that I might soon hope to revisit you. But…age begins to press hard upon me…I had not heard, before I received your kind letter, that poor Lewis…was gone. I am in low spirits, partly from my own state of health, & the news has much shocked me. Death has indeed been busy this year…On Monday last I have the concluding lecture of my 40th geological course! I had this term the largest class that ever set before me. It was a sorrowful thing for me to tell them that I never…again to address a class from the Woodwardian Chair." In very good to fine condition, with light show-through on the last from old mounting remnants on the back. Across all formats, this letter represents our first signed item from Sedgwick, who, in 1818, became the Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge, holding the chair until his death in 1873. His biography in the Cambridge Alumni database says that upon his acceptance of the position, reverend Sedgwick had no working knowledge of geology.
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