The family name was originally Beach, but his father changed it to create a fictional connection with the medieval Barons De la Beche of Aldworth, Berkshire.

[5] Henry De la Beche spent his early life living with his mother in Lyme Regis, where he acquired a love for geology through his friendship with Mary Anning.

Contact with the mining community of that part of the country gave him the idea that the nation ought to compile a geological map of the United Kingdom, and collect and preserve specimens to illustrate, and aid in further developing, its mineral industries.

This formed the starting point of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, which was officially recognised in 1835, when De la Beche was appointed as director.

[10] Increasing stores of valuable specimens began to arrive in London; and the building at Craig's Court, off Whitehall, where the young Museum of Economic (afterwards Practical) Geology was placed, became too small.

[3] Conditions of scientific testing were rudimentary; as part of his colleague Lyon Playfair's investigations into "overflowing privies", Sir Henry De la Beche once took the role of test-vomiter, to judge sewage flow.

De la Beche was the principal antagonist of Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick in what has been labelled The Great Devonian Controversy.

[citation needed] After his death, students at the Royal College of Mines and other institutions competed for the bursary of the De la Beche medal.

[16] He was a great and objective scientist and poked fun at some of the more outlandish theories of the time, such as that put forward by Charles Lyell, proposing that geological and biological history were cyclical and that ancient life forms would again walk the earth.

The marriage was not a success and, in 1825, the couple split up with an acrimonious public controversy with Letitia requesting a legal separation on the grounds that "the union proved to be of the most unhappy nature: the treatment which Lady De la Beche received at the hands of her husband being such as to render it impossible for her to live with him.

[5] Daughter Elizabeth (1819–1866), known as Bessie, married Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn, a scientist, industrialist and long-serving Liberal MP for Swansea who campaigned for disestablishment in Wales on 16 August 1838.

1843) who became a barrister, and three daughters: Mary De la Beche Nicholl (1839–1922), an alpinist and lepidopterist; Amy Dillwyn (1845–1935), a novelist and industrialist;[20] and Sarah, known as Essie (b.