Geological Society of London in the context of "Inception of Darwin's theory"

Robert Edmond Grant MD FRCPEd FRS FRSE FZS FGS (11 November 1793 – 23 August 1874) was a British anatomist and zoologist.

Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. He is credited with discovering clathrate hydrates.

In 1799, he experimented with nitrous oxide and was astonished at how it made him laugh. He nicknamed it "laughing gas" and wrote about its potential as an anaesthetic to relieve pain during surgery. Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), a founder member and Fellow of the Geological Society of London, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture "On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity" "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry."

The Gaia hypothesis (/ˈɡaɪ.ə/), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.

The Gaia hypothesis was formulated by the chemist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Following the suggestion by his neighbour, novelist William Golding, Lovelock named the hypothesis after Gaia, the primordial deity who was sometimes personified as the Earth in Greek mythology. In 2006, the Geological Society of London awarded Lovelock the Wollaston Medal in part for his work on the Gaia hypothesis.

Piccadilly (/ˌpɪkəˈdɪli/) is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, Heathrow Airport and the M4 motorway westward. St James's is to the south of the eastern section, while the western section is built up only on the northern side. Piccadilly is just under 1 mile (1.6 km) in length, and it is one of the widest and straightest streets in central London.

The street has been a main thoroughfare since at least medieval times, and in the Middle Ages was known as "the road to Reading" or "the way from Colnbrook". Around 1611 or 1612, Robert Baker acquired land in the area, and prospered by making and selling piccadills. Shortly after purchasing the land, he enclosed it and erected several dwellings, including his home, Pikadilly Hall. What is now Piccadilly was named Portugal Street in 1663 after Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II, and grew in importance after the road from Charing Cross to Hyde Park Corner was closed to allow the creation of Green Park in 1668. Some of the most notable stately houses in London were built on the northern side of the street during this period, including Clarendon House and Burlington House in 1664. Berkeley House, constructed around the same time as Clarendon House, was destroyed by a fire in 1733 and rebuilt as Devonshire House in 1737 by William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire. It was later used as the main headquarters for the Whig party. Burlington House has since been home to several noted societies, including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Geological Society of London, the Linnean Society, and the Royal Astronomical Society. Several members of the Rothschild family had mansions at the western end of the street. St James's Church was consecrated in 1684 and the surrounding area became St James Parish.

William Daniel Conybeare FRS (7 June 1787 – 12 August 1857), dean of Llandaff, was an English geologist, palaeontologist and clergyman. He is probably best known for his ground-breaking work on fossils and excavation in the 1820s, including important papers for the Geological Society of London on ichthyosaur anatomy and the first published scientific description of a plesiosaur.

William Phillips FGS FRS (10 May 1775 – 2 April 1828) was an English mineralogist and geologist.