Documentary evidence relating to the southern area of the Black Country, where the Coal Measures is very rich in workable mineral seams indeed and superficial deposits are almost entirely absent indicates that coal mining activity has been occurring. This was happening from at least1280 and probably long before. Archaeological evidence in the area demonstrates that limestone and ironstone mining much earlier than even this. This activity undoubtedly created masses of rock exposure, however it is not until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century that we see any conscious site based geoconservation occurring. The fame of the town of Dudley had spread as a site of superb fossils and many pioneers of science came here in those early years of geology. One of the local fossils, the Silurian trilobite Calymene blumenbachii was among the first to be figured and became known as the ‘Dudley Fossil’ in the early years of the nineteenth century.
The most famous visits were those of Sir Roderick Murchison in the early 1830’s. He came several times to the area in his researches and got to know its miners, gentry and geology. His work here and nearby in the Welsh borders lead to his very famous work, ‘The Silurian System’ which was published in 1839. In that year he also brought a party of scientists from the British Association for the Advancement of Science to Dudley to experience the spectacle of the mines and perhaps this, the greatest of the fossil localities that he had discovered on his journeys.
The local miners had assembled a collection of local fossil finds for the visit which immediately yielded many new species to science. With the encouragement of Murchison the local people decided that these collections should remain together and form a permanent museum in the Town of Dudley. In a paper written somewhat later (1862) Professor Henry Beckett states
‘It will be of interest to add that Dudley Museum originated from the meeting of the British Association in Birmingham in 1839. There were exhibited at Dudley for that meeting a number of Silurian and Carboniferous fossils which belonged to several inhabitants of the town. Consequent on this exhibit of fossils a permanent society was formed and the museum established.’
This single event had far-reaching geoconservation consequences.
