Searles Valentine Wood

Searles Valentine Wood ( born February 14, 1798 in Woodbridge, † October 26, 1880 in Martlesham at Woodbridge ) was an English paleontologist.

Wood was the son of John Wood and Mary Ann Baker. He hired himself out as a midshipman in 1811 in the fleet of the British East India Company and became an officer. In 1821 he married Elizabeth Taylor, the only daughter of Thomas Taylor of London. He left the Company in 1826 and traveled back some time to settle down then as a partner in his father's bank in Hasketon near Woodbridge in Suffolk and to study paleontology. In 1835 he retired due to illness from work and moved to London after his health was restored. There he found work as a curator at the Museum of the Geological Society of London, whose member he was 1839.

Henceforth, he dealt with the study of mollusks of the Neogene ( Newer Tertiary ) of Suffolk and the Paleogene ( Older Tertiary ), especially the Eocene of the Hampshire Basin. Between 1861 and 1871 he published his study A Monograph of the Eocene Bivalves of England (, A Monograph of the Eocene Bivalves of England '), which was published by the Society Palaeontographical. His main work was the written 1848-1856 work A Monograph of the Crag Mollusca (, A monograph of the Mollusca of the Crag '), which was also published by the Palaeontographical Society. It received 1872-1874, 1879 and 1882, three additional volumes, the last of his young son Searles Valentine Wood. was issued.

Wood was in correspondence with Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, who in 1854 paid tribute to Woods in an essay on the Palaeontographical Society. In 1860 he received the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London for his achievements.

Wood died at the age of 82 and was buried in Melton. He is said to have jokingly remarked:

" I was born in sight of one crag pit and Shall probably be buried in another"

"I was born within sight of a quarry, and will probably be buried in another "