Adam Sedgwick FRS (/ˈsɛdʒwɪk/; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology.

[2][3] He strongly opposed the admission of women to the University of Cambridge, in one conversation describing aspiring female students as "nasty forward minxes.

He founded the system for the classification of Cambrian rocks and with Roderick Murchison worked out the order of the Carboniferous and underlying Devonian strata.

[9] He also employed John William Salter for a short time in arranging the fossils in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, and whom accompanied the professor on several geological expeditions (1842–1845) into Wales.

He told the February 1830 meeting of the Geological Society of London: As a geologist in the mid-1820s he supported William Buckland's interpretation of certain superficial deposits, particularly loose rocks and gravel, as "diluvium" relating to worldwide floods, and in 1825 he published two papers identifying these as due to a "great irregular inundation" from the "waters of a general deluge", Noah's flood.

Perhaps I may date my change of mind (at least in part) from our journey in the Highlands, where there are so many indications of local diluvial operations.... Humboldt ridiculed [the doctrine] beyond measure when I met him in Paris.

[12] He strongly believed that species of organisms originated in a succession of Divine creative acts throughout the long expanse of history.

He stated in 1830 that scriptural geologists proposed "a deformed progeny of heretical and fantastical conclusions, by which sober philosophy has been put to open shame, and sometimes even the charities of life have been exposed to violation.

[15] He referred to Sedgwick's ideas as "unscriptural and anti-Christian," "scripture-defying", "revelation-subverting," and "baseless speculations and self-contradictions," which were "impious and infidel".

The entire chapter house of the cathedral refused to sit down with Sedgwick, and he was opposed by conservative papers including The Times, but his courage was hailed by the full spectrum of the liberal press, and the confrontation was a key moment in the battle over relations between Scripture and science.

Vestiges "comes before [its readers] with a bright, polished, and many-coloured surface, and the serpent coils a false philosophy, and asks them to stretch out their hands and pluck the forbidden fruit", he wrote in his review.

"[19] Later, Sedgwick added a long preface to the 5th edition of his Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge (1850), including a lengthy attack on Vestiges and theories of development in general.

[20] In a letter to another correspondent, Sedgwick was even harsher on Darwin's book, calling it "utterly false" and writing that "It repudiates all reasoning from final causes; and seems to shut the door on any view (however feeble) of the God of Nature as manifested in His works.

[22] Sedgwick is listed in the University College London database, Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave Ownership, as being an awardee in receipt of £3,783 1s 8d on 8 February 1836 for "174 Enslaved".

[citation needed] In a letter to Bishop Wilberforce, dated July 16, 1848, Sedgwick wrote of signing a petition against the slave trade while he was a child—the first "political act of [his] life"—after his father had shown him "ugly pictures of the horrors of slavery".

Van Sittart the sum of 500 pounds sterling "for the purpose of encouraging the study of geology among the resident members of the university, and in honour of the Rev.