Charles Lyell

Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet

1797 - 1875 aged 77 (buried in Westminster Abbey)

Lyell built on James Hutton’s ideas about uniformitarianism - natural laws have always been true since the beginning of creation and changes happen gradually over long periods of time. He also played a key role in developing the general popularity and credibility of geology as a science, convincing many of the significance of "deep time"

Lyell had a great influence on his close friend, Charles Darwin, contributing to Darwin's thinking on evolutionary processes.

Lyell is best known as the author of 'Principles of Geology' - its central tenet being, the present is the key to the past