William Dallinger

William Henry Dallinger FRS (5 July 1839 – 7 November 1909) was a British minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church.

In the late 19th century, he cultivated small unicellular organisms in a custom-built incubator over a time period of seven years (1880–1886).

The early cultures had shown clear signs of distress at a temperature of 73 °F, and were certainly not capable of surviving at 158 °F.

The organisms Dallinger had in his incubator at the end of the experiment, on the other hand, were perfectly fine at 158 °F.

He believed there was no conflict between religion and science and there was no reason to try and reconcile the Book of Genesis with geology.