Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Woodward, John
WOODWARD, JOHN (1665–1728), geologist and physician, whose father is said to have sprung from the Woodwards of Deane in Gloucestershire, his mother being descended from the family of Burdett, was born in Derbyshire on 1 May 1665 (cf. Visitation of Gloucestershire, Harl. Soc. pp. 185–6). On leaving school at sixteen he is believed to have been apprenticed to a linendraper in London. About 1684 he came under the notice of Dr. Peter Barwick [q. v.], physician to Charles II, who received him into his house and took him under his tuition in his own family. On 13 Jan. 1692 he was elected professor of physic in Gresham College, and F.R.S. on 30 Nov. 1693. On 4 Feb. 1695 he was created M.D. by Archbishop Thomas Tenison [q. v.], and on 28 June of that year he received the same degree from the university of Cambridge, being at the same time admitted a member of Pembroke Hall (Graduati Cantabr. 1659–1823, p. 528). He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 25 June 1698, and made a fellow on 22 March 1702–3. He held the office of censor there in 1703, and again in 1714 and in 1710–11 delivered the Gulstonian lectures ‘On the Bile and its Uses.’
Woodward's attention was attracted to fossils while he was staying with his tutor Barwick's son-in-law, Sir Ralph Dutton, in Gloucestershire. He subsequently took the subject up and travelled in various parts of England, making notes and collecting specimens, the results of his observations being embodied in his still celebrated work, ‘An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth,’ published in 1695. From this it appears that he recognised the existence of various strata in the earth's crust, and that the fossils were the ‘real spoils of once living animals,’ but he was so taken up with his theory that they had all been mixed up at the flood with the fragments of the disrupted crust, and that the whole had subsequently settled down in layers according to relative specific gravities, that he overlooked their true disposition in the strata, and so failed to anticipate William Smith (1769–1839) [q. v.], the ‘father of English geology.’
His ‘Essay’ was criticised by Dr. John Arbuthnot [q. v.], John Ray [q. v.], and others, who were answered by John Harris in his ‘Remarks on some late Papers relating to the Universal Deluge’ (8vo, 1697). The Latin translation of the work was commented on by Dr. E. Camerarius of Tübingen, and to him Woodward replied in his ‘Naturalis Historia Telluris illustrata.’ He was also well versed, for the period, in botany, Plukenet describing him as ‘insignis botanicus.’ His paper, ‘Some Thoughts and Experiments concerning Vegetation,’ read before the Royal Society in 1697, shows him to have been one of the founders of experimental plant-physiology, and one of the first to employ water culture and make careful experiments, while he certainly discovered ‘Transpiration’ (cf. Hallam, Lit. of Europe, iii. 592, 595). To antiquities he also paid some attention, and was the possessor of an iron shield with sculptured centre, which was described by Dr. Henry Dodwell the elder [q. v.] in a posthumous tract, and was engraved by Pieter van Gunst for a print published at Amsterdam in 1705. This relic brought Woodward into notice among antiquaries, and also was the source of much ridicule among contemporary wits.
On medical subjects Woodward wrote but little. The one work published during his lifetime was his ‘State of Physic’ (1718), in which he attacked the work of Dr. John Freind [q. v.] The dispute that arose in consequence was carried on with great acrimony and violence between the partisans of either side; Dr. Richard Mead [q. v.] went as far as to assault Woodward one evening in June 1719 as the latter was entering Gresham College. Swords were drawn and a fracas ensued, in which Woodward lost his footing and lay at the mercy of his adversary, when the bystanders intervened.
Woodward often served on the council of the Royal Society, and in 1710 he grossly insulted Sir Hans Sloane [q. v.] at a council meeting. Refusing to apologise, he was expelled the council, and brought an unsuccessful action at law against that body. ‘The Transactioneer,’ an anonymous pamphlet satirising the society, attributed by Dr. Johnson to Dr. W. King, was thought at the time to be the work of Woodward, who, however, warmly resented the imputation.
Woodward died of a decline in his apartments at Gresham College on 25 April 1728, and was buried the May-day following in Westminster Abbey, close to Sir Isaac Newton (Chester, Westm. Abbey Reg. p. 322). By his will he directed his personal estate, with his library and collection of antiquities, to be sold, and land of the yearly value of 150l. to be bought and conveyed to the university of Cambridge; 100l. to be paid to a lecturer, who was to be a bachelor and preferably a layman, and who should deliver not fewer than four lectures every year, one at least of which was to be printed, on some or other of the subjects treated in his books. He also bequeathed his collection of fossils, with their cabinets and catalogues, to the same university under certain very minute directions and limitations as to their future care and maintenance. His collection formed the nucleus of the present Woodwardian Museum.
The complete list of his works is as follows:
- ‘An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth,’ London, 1695, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1702; 3rd edit. 1723; Latin translation by J. J. Scheuchzer, entitled ‘Specimen Geographiæ Physicæ,’ Zürich, 1704, 8vo; French translation by M. Moguez, Paris and Amsterdam, 1735, 4to; Italian translation, Venice, 1739, 8vo.
- ‘Brief Instructions for making Observations in all parts of the World and sending over Natural Things’ [anon.], 1696, 4to.
- ‘An Account of some Roman Urns … With Reflections upon the Antient and Present State of London,’ London, 1713, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1723; also reissued in Somers's ‘Collection of Tracts’ (vol. iv. 1748, and vol. xiii. 1809).
- ‘Naturalis Historia Telluris illustrata et aucta,’ London, 1714, 3 pts. 8vo; English translation by B. Holloway, London, 1726, 2 pts. 8vo.
- ‘The State of Physick and of Diseases,’ London, 1718, 8vo; Latin translation by J. J. Scheuchzer, Zürich, 1720, 8vo.
- ‘An attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England,’ London, 1728–9, 2 vols. 8vo; issued in five parts, each with its own title, vol. ii. appearing first.
- ‘Fossils of all kinds digested into a Method,’ London, 1728, 8vo.
- ‘Select Cases and Consultations in Physic … published by P. Templeman,’ London, 1757, 8vo.
In addition to the botanical paper already quoted, he communicated to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ of the Royal Society ‘An Account … of the Procuring the Smallpox by Incision or Inoculation’ (1714), extracted from a letter by E. Timonius; and a paper on the ‘Method of preparing Prussian Blue’ (1724), which he received from a German correspondent, the process having previously been a secret; in 1776 a paper by him, edited by M. Lort, ‘Of the Wisdom of the Ancient Egyptians,’ was published in ‘Archæologia’ (vol. iv.), and separately in the following year.
[Clark and McKenny Hughes's Life and Letters of the Rev. A. Sedgwick, i. 166–84, with engraved portrait from the contemporary oil-painting in the Woodwardian Museum; Ward's Lives of Professors of Gresham College, pp. 283–301; Weld's Hist. Royal Soc. i. 353–5; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. v. 95, vi. 641; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Noble's Contin. of Granger's Biogr. Hist.; Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 6; Britten and Boulger's English Botanists; Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc.]