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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2025
In many of the modern text books epitomizing the story of the first discoveries of the Antiquity of Man and of his having been the contemporary of extinct mammalia, the part played by MacEnery, Pengelly and the members of the Torquay Natural History Society often receives very little adequate representation. Usually most of the praise is meted out to Boucher de Perthes, and it is quite forgotten that it was the spade work of these English pioneers which induced Falconer, Prestwich and Evans to take up the cause of the famous archaeologist of Abbeville. An attempt therefore will be made to relate in their proper order the series of incidents that led up to the revolution of scientific opinion in 1859 on the antiquity of the human race. These when seen in their true sequence, from Kent’s Cavern to the valley of the Somme, are also the vindication of MacEnery’s discoveries.
As early as 1840, Godwin-Austen read a paper to the Geological Society of London On the Bone Caves of Devonshire (March 25th), but in it he made no mention of MacEnery; nor did he, as is generally asserted, speak of the flint implements. Perhaps he thought it politic to avoid the subject as Buckland was in the chair. A year later (MacEnery died in the February) Godwin-Austen and Buckland had ‘an interesting discussion’ at the Plymouth meeting of the British Association.
1 Literary Gazette, 14th August, 1841.
2 Trans. Geol. Soc., 2nd Series, vol. vi, pt. 2, pp. 433-489.
3 Athenaeum, 5th June, 1847.
4 Quart. journ. Geol. Soc., vol. iii, 1847, p. 353.
5 Except Dr. Rigollot, whose interesting paper, Memorie sur des Instruments en Silex trouvés a Saint-Acheul’ (1854) was discussed by the Geological Society of France, January, 1855, and discredited.
6 Another new field of enquiry was breaking down prejudice: the investigation of what is now known as the Quaternary Ice Age. Buckland spoke of it (1846) ‘as the most important subject that had been put forth since the propounding of the Huttonian Theory.’ He had accepted it as early as 1838.
7 He tactfully avoided the question of the antiquity of man.
8 Phil. Trans, 1873, p. 476.
9 A thenaum, 9th October, 1858.
10 Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Prestwich, 1899, p. 117.
11 Op. cit., p. 119.
12 Op. cit., p. 120.
13 Published in Phil. Trans., 1860, 1861, pp: 277-316: On the Occurrence of Flint Implements, associated with the Remains of Animals of Extinct Species in Beds of a late Geological Period. in France, at Amiens and Abbeville, and in England at Home.
14 Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Prestwich, p. 134.
15 1859: May 27th, The Royol Institution: ‘On the Ossiferous Caverns and Fissures in Devonshire,’ by W. Pengelly. June and, The Society of Antiquaries: ‘On the occurrence of Flint Implements in undisturbed Beds of Gravel, Sand and Clay (such as are known by Geologists under the name of Drift) in several localities, both on the Continent and this Country,’ by John Evans. June 22nd, The Geological Society called an extraordinary meeting: ‘Further observations on the Occurrence of Objects of Human Art in the Bone-Breccia of the Caves near Palerrno,’ by Dr. Falconer; ‘Report on the Progress of the Explorations of the Cave at Brixham,’ by J. Prestwich; ‘On a Flint-Implement recently obtained from the gravel near Amiens,’ by W. Flower.
16 He singled out Schmerling and MacEnery as the two pioneers whose neglected work should have merited better treatment.