ABSTRACT
Phillips joined Smith in York in February 1824, primarily to assist with the eight lectures his uncle had undertaken to give for £50 to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. In June Phillips made his first appearance at a YPS meeting as a guest o f Smith. By summer 1829 he had secured total independence from Smith, who from 1826 lived in Scarborough and then near it. In 1826 Phillips assumed the post o f first keeper o f the Society’s museum at a salary o f £60 per annum, an emolument which he supplemented by fees from lecturing in York and in large towns in northern England. Elected a fellow o f the Geological Society in 1828, he published next year his classic work on the geology o f the Yorkshire coast (Fig. 2.1). For decades it was regarded as a leading prototype o f regional stratigraphical treatises. How had the mineral surveyor transformed him self in just over five years into a geologist who combined curating, lecturing, research, and publication? How was it that Phillips, and not Smith, was able to establish him self as the leading expert on the coastal geology ofYorkshire, an area and a county on which Smith had worked for several years?
