Editing Charles Lyell (section)

==Biography==
Lyell was born into a wealthy family, on 14 November 1797, at the family's [[estate house]], [[Kinnordy House]], near [[Kirriemuir]] in Forfarshire. He was the eldest of ten children. Lyell's father, also named [[Charles Lyell (botanist)|Charles Lyell]], was noted as a translator and scholar of [[Dante]]. An accomplished botanist, it was he who first exposed his son to the study of nature. Lyell's grandfather, also Charles Lyell, had made the family fortune supplying the [[Royal Navy]] at [[Montrose, Angus|Montrose]], enabling him to buy Kinnordy House.
[[File:Scotland (Location) Named (HR).png|thumb|The main geographical <br />divisions of Scotland]]

The [[family seat]] is located in [[Strathmore, Angus|Strathmore]], near the [[Highland Boundary Fault]]. Round the house, in the [[strath]], is good farmland, but within a short distance to the north-west, on the other side of the fault, are the [[Grampian Mountains]] in the [[Scottish Highlands|Highlands]]. His family's second country home was in a completely different geological and ecological area: he spent much of his childhood at [[Bartley Lodge]] in the [[New Forest]], in Hampshire in southern England.

Lyell entered [[Exeter College, Oxford]], in 1816, and attended [[William Buckland]]'s geological lectures. He graduated with a BA Hons. second class degree in classics, in December 1819, and gained his [[Master of Arts (Oxbridge and Dublin)|M.A.]] 1821.{{sfnp|Bailey|1962|p=}}{{sfn|Wilson|1973}} After graduation he took up law as a profession, entering [[Lincoln's Inn]] in 1820. He completed a circuit through rural England, where he could observe geological phenomena. In 1821 he attended [[Robert Jameson]]'s lectures in Edinburgh, and visited [[Gideon Mantell]] at [[Lewes]], in [[Sussex]]. In 1823 he was elected joint secretary of the [[Geological Society]]. As his eyesight began to deteriorate, he turned to geology as a full-time profession.{{sfn|Wilson|1973}} His first paper, "On a recent formation of freshwater limestone in Forfarshire", was presented in 1826.{{sfn|Wilson|1973}} By 1827, he had abandoned law and embarked on a geological career that would result in fame and the general acceptance of uniformitarianism, a working out of the ideas proposed by [[James Hutton]] a few decades earlier.

[[File:Lyell 1840.jpg|left|thumb|Charles Lyell at the [[British Association]] meeting in Glasgow 1840. Painting by Alexander Craig.]]
In 1832, Lyell married [[Mary Horner]] in Bonn, daughter of [[Leonard Horner]] (1785–1864), also associated with the [[Geological Society of London]]. The new couple spent their honeymoon in Switzerland and Italy on a geological tour of the area.{{sfn|MaComber|1997}}

During the 1840s, Lyell travelled to the United States and Canada, and wrote two popular travel-and-geology books: ''Travels in North America'' (1845) and ''A Second Visit to the United States'' (1849). In 1866, he was elected a foreign member of the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]]. After the [[Great Chicago Fire]] in 1871, Lyell was one of the first to donate books to help found the [[Chicago Public Library]].

In 1841, Lyell was elected as a member to the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=1842&year-max=1842&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-04-12|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

Lyell's wife died in 1873, and two years later (in 1875) Lyell himself died as he was revising the twelfth edition of ''Principles''.{{sfn|MaComber|1997}}<ref name="Westminster Abbey">{{Cite web |title=Charles Lyell |work=Westminster Abbey |access-date=8 September 2018 |url= https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/charles-lyell/ }}</ref> He is buried in [[Westminster Abbey]] where there is a bust to him by [[William Theed]] in the north aisle.{{sfn|Hall|1966|p=53}}

Lyell was knighted ([[Knight Bachelor|Kt]]) in 1848,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=20905 |date=13 October 1848 |page=3692}}</ref> and later, in 1864, made a baronet ([[Baronet|Bt]]),<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=22878 |date=22 July 1864 |page=3665}}</ref> which is an hereditary honour. He was awarded the [[Copley Medal]] of the [[Royal Society]] in 1858 and the [[Wollaston Medal]] of the [[Geological Society]] in 1866. [[Mount Lyell (California)|Mount Lyell]], the highest peak in [[Yosemite National Park]], is named after him; the crater [[Lyell (lunar crater)|Lyell]] on the [[Moon]] and a [[Impact crater|crater]] on [[Mars]] were named in his honour; [[Mount Lyell (Tasmania)|Mount Lyell]] in western Tasmania, Australia, located in a profitable mining area, bears Lyell's name; and the Lyell Range in north-west Western Australia is named after him as well. In Southwest Nelson in the South Island of New Zealand, the Lyell Range, Lyell River and the gold mining town of [[Lyell, New Zealand|Lyell]] (now only a camping site) were all named after Lyell.<ref name="Russell2011">{{Cite web |title=Lyell |first=Steph |last=Russell |work=theprow.org.nz |date=2011 |access-date=8 September 2018 |url= http://www.theprow.org.nz/yourstory/lyell/#.W5OjmOgza02  }}</ref> [[Lyall Bay]] in Wellington, New Zealand was possibly named after Lyell.<ref>{{Cite news |date=5 August 1908 |title=The empire city: street and harbour nomenclature |work=Wairarapa Daily Times |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WDT19080805.2.49 |access-date=10 November 2022 |via=Paperspast}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Hayward |first=H. M. |date=9 April 1910 |title=Lyell or Lyall? |work=Evening Post |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19100409.2.22 |access-date=10 November 2022 |via=Paperspast}}</ref> The jawless fish ''[[Cephalaspis]] lyelli'', from the [[Old Red Sandstone]] of southern Scotland, was named by [[Louis Agassiz]] in honour of Lyell.{{sfnp|White|1958|pp=99–105}}

Sir Charles Lyell was buried at [[Westminster Abbey]] on 27 February 1875. The pallbearers included [[Thomas Henry Huxley|T. H. Huxley]], [[William Samuel Symonds|the Rev. W. S. Symonds]] and Mr [[John Carrick Moore]].<ref>{{cite news | title = Funeral of Sir Charles Lyell this day | newspaper = The Sun | location = London | page = 5| date = 27 February 1875}}</ref>