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John Gibson (1778-
John Gibson was a manufacturing chemist and collector of fossils from Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire and Ilford, Essex. He was baptised at Kirkby Moorside, Yorkshire on 15th February 1778. Gibson was a native of Yorkshire, but later lived in Plaistow and Stratford, Essex from about 1805-
John Gibson died after a short illness following a haemorrhage on 2nd October 1840 at Bow Road, aged 62. He was buried in St. John’s Church, Stratford on 19th October, and a white marble memorial tablet placed on the north aisle wall. He wrote his will on 31st May 1839. His estate was estimated at being below £35,000. He was a very wealthy man and his will mentions his furniture, plate, linen, china, glass, horses and carriages, wines and liquors which he left to his wife. He stipulated in his will "…after my decease I give my books, pictures, prints, philosophical instruments, coins, shells, fossils and all my other natural curiosities unto my son John Gibson.
His parents were Jonathon Gibson, a labourer, and Betty Pridoms. He married Ann Harrison, whose father was a tanner, on 1st May 1809 at Great Edstone, Yorkshire. They had five children. His second son became a clergyman, both his daughters married clergymen and four of his grandsons went into the church.
In 1805 he was working at a chemical works in Plaistow, Essex and in 1807 he went into partnership with the meteorologist, Luke Howard (1772-
John Gibson was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society on 4th June 1824 and remained a member until his death in 1840. One of his sponsors was William Buckland (1784-
Shortly after his work in Yorkshire, Gibson was collecting Pleistocene fossils from Ilford. In 1824 the entire skeleton of a large mammoth was discovered at Ilford at a depth of 4.8m in a tenacious clay. He spent much time and effort diligently collecting and preserving the bones. Professor Buckland and William Clift helped him to excavate "a large tusk and several of the largest cylindrical bones of the legs, many ribs and vertebrae, with the smallest bones of the feet and tail lying close upon one and other". Unfortunately he was unable to reassemble the skeleton estimated to have been at least 4.5m high. Gibson used glue as well as plaster of Paris to protect his specimens. In 1833 Gibson donated to the Yorkshire Museum "an interesting suite of bones of elephant, rhinoceros, ox etc. from the diluvium of Ilford. Some of John Gibson’s Ilford specimens, including mammoth bones & teeth and bones of a large aurochs, went to the Royal College of Surgeons Museum where they were destroyed by enemy action in the last war. The Ilford fossils are about 210,000 years old.
Sources
W.H. George. 1998. John Gibson (1778-
W.H. George. 1998. John Gibson (1778-
Fossil Hyaena Jaw, 120,000 years old, collected by John Gibson from Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire