Bigsby, John J. (John Jeremiah), 1792-1881

The British physician John J. Bigsby’s carrier spanned medicine, geology and paleontology. He received his medical degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1814. It was, however, for his work in geology rather than medicine that he became well-known. He first became interested in geology during his military service in the Cape of Good Hope in 1817, then in Upper and Lower Canada from 1818 to 1826. While stationed in Quebec, he wrote a report on the geology of Upper Canada (1819) as well as serving on the Boundary Commission (1822).
Back in Britain, he was alderman, mayor and doctor for Newark-upon-Trent in Nottinghamshire from 1827 to 1830 before moving to London. In 1850 he returned to British North America, authoring a book on his travels: "The Shoe and Canoe," and was soon submitting papers to learned societies (27 in all), as well as several monumental works. Thesaurus Siluricus (1868), a list of all fossils in Silurian formations across the world, earned him the Murchison medal in 1874 from the Geological Society of London, of which he had been a member since 1823. This was followed in 1878 by Thesaurus Devonico-Carboniferous. He was working on a third, Thesaurus Permianus, when he died. Bigsby endowed a medal in his name for the Geological Society of London to award to a person younger than 45. George Mercer Dawson, who received the Bigsby Medal in 1891, honoured him in 1878 by giving his name to Bigsby Inlet in the Queen Charlotte Islands.