Episode 1 of 1

Founding of the Geological Survey

When: 1835
Where: London
Part of: Founding of the British Geological Survey, the world's first national geological survey

The Geological Survey of Great Britain was officially recognized in 1835, becoming the world's first national geological survey.

Established by the Board of Ordnance, the survey was founded in 1835. Henry De la Beche was appointed as its director, marking the beginning of systematic national geological surveying in the United Kingdom.

Sources

British Geological Survey Wikipedia, revision of 2026-04-25
Henry De la Beche Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-04

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.