Thomas Hawkins (geologist)

Thomas Hawkins (22 July 1810 – 15 October 1889) was an English fossil collector and dealer,[1] especially of Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs.

Hawkins paid for fossils exposed by erosion at Lyme Regis on the Dorset Coast, and quarrymen at inland quarries at Street and Edgarley in Somerset.

The two best known are Memoirs of Icthyosaurii and Plesiosaurii (1835) and The Book of the Great Sea Dragons – full title The book of the great sea-dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, [gedolim taninim] gedolim taninim, of Moses.

With thirty plates, copied from skeletons in the author's collection of fossil organic remains, (deposited in the British museum.)

[citation needed] Hawkins was a Fellow of the Geological Society of London.

Front piece of The book of the Great Sea Dragons
Hawkins' specimens are still on show at the Natural History Museum, London