In 1805 he was working at a chemical works in Plaistow, Essex and in 1807 he went into
partnership with the meteorologist Luke Howard (1772-1864) and Joseph Jewell (1763-
1846). The three of them were running a chemical works in Stratford, Essex. Both his
business partners were Quakers.
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-
1856), Professor of Geology at Oxford. Gibson's main geological work was at two very
important Pleistocene sites, Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire and Ilford, Essex. In the summer
of 1821, while visiting friends near Helmsley, Gibson noticed some bones and tusks
among lumps of limestone which had been used to repair a road. He tracked them back to
a quarry adjacent to Kirkdale church and soon realised the antiquity and significance of
the bones which the quarrymen had thought were modern. Gibson amassed and preserved
a large collection of bones, tusks and teeth. He acquired, for example, more than 300
hyaena canine teeth belonging to at least 75 individuals. Gibson also obtained a bear's
tooth. He soon had the best collection of fossils from Kirkdale Cave. Some drawings of
his better specimens were sent to Cuvier, the great French naturalist in Paris, to be
incorporated into a new edition of his monumental work on fossil quadrupeds. Gibson's
great discoveries prompted William Buckland to investigate the cave. He declared that
Kirkdale Cave was a hyaena den and reported his findings and research to the Royal
Society in February 1822 and published his famous Reliquae Diluvianae in 1823. Gibson
donated specimens from Kirkdale to the Geological Society, British Museum and the
Royal College of Surgeons Museum. These finds are now considered to be of Ipswichian
age, about 120,000 years old.
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 (1778-1840) manufacturing chemist and fossil
collector of Stratford, Essex. Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 25. May 1998 pp.4-5.
W.H. George. 1998. John Gibson (1778-1840) manufacturing chemist and collector of
Pleistocene fossils from Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire and Ilford, Essex. 20 pages.
ISBN 0953409201.
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Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 56, May 2008