Henry Riley (scientist)

Henry Riley (1797–1848)^[1] was a British surgeon, anatomist, naturalist, geologist and paleontologist.^[2] He is notable for being the co-discoverer and co-describer of the archosaur Palaeosaurus and the dinosaur Thecodontosaurus.^[3]

Henry Riley
Undated portrait of Henry Riley
Born	1797 Bristol
Died	1848 (age 50-51) Bristol
Nationality	English
Known for	Discovery of Palaeosaurus and Thecodontosaurus
Scientific career
Fields	Geology, Natural history, Anatomy

Early life

Henry Riley was born in Bristol in 1797.^[4] He trained to become a surgeon in Paris and he graduated during the mid-1820s.^[1][5]

He was one of the men who founded the Bristol Institution in the 1820s. Riley was involved in a body snatching scandal in the late 1820s - he was fined £6 (inflated to £657.29 in 2019) in 1828. He was later revoked of this claim during the 1830s.

Riley married the daughter of fellow lecturer Henry Daniel, who lectured from 1810 until 1836.

Career

His Geoffroyan lectures of 1831-33 were the first to be heard in Bristol.^[1] He was a physician at St. Peter's Hospital, Bristol in 1832 and the Bristol Royal Infirmary between 1834 and 1847.^[1]

He taught at Bristol Medical School until he retired in 1846 due to his deteriorating health.^[1]

Palaeontological discoveries

In 1833, Riley described the extinct ray-like chimaeriform Squaloraja based on a specimen found by Mary Anning four years earlier.^[6]

In the autumn of 1834, Riley^[1] and the curator of the Bristol Institution, Samuel Stutchbury, began to excavate "saurian remains" at the quarry of Durdham Down, at Clifton, presently a part of Bristol, which is part of the Magnesian Conglomerate. In 1834 and 1835, they briefly reported on the finds,^[7] and they provided their initial description in 1836, naming the new genera Palaeosaurus and Thecodontosaurus.^[8]

Death

Two years after retiring, Riley died in 1848 in Bristol, aged 50 or 51.^[4]