Samuel Beckles

Samuel Husbands Beckles (12 April 1814, in Barbados – 4 September 1890, in Hastings) was a Bajan/English 19th-century lawyer, turned dinosaur hunter, who collected remains in Sussex and the Isle of Wight.

[5] He retired from his life as a barrister due to ill health in 1845, moving to St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex.

[6] Between 1851 and 1854 he published three accounts of footprints from the Lower Cretaceous Wealden rocks near Hastings, identifying them as the imprints of large bipedal animals, possibly birds.

In 1854 a mammal jaw was discovered at Durlston Bay by William Brodie of Swanage and he made further discoveries over the next two years.

[7] Richard Owen persuaded Beckles to carry out an excavation of the area where the jaw had been found and this commenced in 1856.

[9] The recovered specimens were sent straight to Charles Lyell, who handed them to Hugh Falconer for the initial description.