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John Evans, Joseph Prestwich and the stone that shattered the time barrier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Clive Gamble  and
Robert Kruszynski
Clive Gamble
Affiliation:
Centre for Quaternary Research, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK (Email: [email protected])
Robert Kruszynski
Affiliation:
Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK (Email: [email protected])
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Extract

It all began in a railway carriage. Two businessmen, travelling to the Kingston Assizes in Surrey, nodded to each other as strangers do, but did not strike up a conversation. They were expert witnesses appearing for different sides in the Croydon Water Question; a legal test case that boiled down to who owned the undergroundwaters of London (Mather 2008: 83–4). Joseph Prestwich (Figure 1a), the older by 11 years, represented the water suppliers. As the train rattled along under full steam he would have seen landmarks from his pioneering geology of the London Basin. But water was not his business. His family ran a profitable wine importers. Geology, however, was his passion.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 320 , June 2009 , pp. 461 - 475
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

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