William Buckland DD
FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became
Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and
palaeontologist, writing the first full account of a
fossil dinosaur, which he named
Megalosaurus. His work proving that
Kirkdale Cave had been a prehistoric
hyena den, for which he was awarded the
Copley Medal, was praised as an example of how scientific analysis could reconstruct events from the distant past. He was a pioneer in the use of fossilised faeces, for which he coined the term
coprolites, to reconstruct ancient ecosystems.