Sir John William Dawson (1820 - 1899)
Sir John
William Dawson (1820–1899) was a Canadian geologist,
paleontologist and educator. He served as Principal of McGill
University from 1855 - 1893: the Redpath Museum there was
donated in his honor. He was founder and first president of the
Royal Society of Canada. A devout Christian, Dawson wrote and
spoke against Darwin's Theory of Evolution, and maintained that
Humans were of recent Creation. His Acadian Geology became an important
account of the geology of Atlantic Canada. Together with Charles
Lyell, Dawson investigated
Carboniferous rock formations at the Joggins cliffs of Nova
Scotia, where he identified fossil plants and some of the
earliest known terrestrial vertebrates. His geological work made
him one of Canada’s leading nineteenth-century scientists.