Edward William Binney was born at Morton, in Nottinghamshire in 1812, and educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Gainsborough.
He retired soon afterwards from legal practice and gave his chief attention to geological pursuits.
[1] Working especially on the Carboniferous and Permian rocks of the north of England, he also studied the Drift deposits of Lancashire, which resulted in him and Joseph Dalton Hooker finding the first coal balls, and made himself familiar with the geology of the area around Manchester.
On the Coal Measures in particular he became an acknowledged authority, and his Observations on the Structure of Fossil Plants found in the Carboniferous Strata (1868–75) formed one of the monographs of the Palaeontographical Society.
[1] Binney assisted in founding the Manchester Geological Society in 1838, and was then chosen as one of its Honorary Secretaries, later being elected President in 1857 and again in 1865.