and Charlotte. Charles was the firstborn. The two brothers maintained a close friendship until Charles' "untimely death" in a riding accident in Canada. George and Charles cooperatively wrote Charles' autobiography. Not much has been documented about George's early and teen years, and his personal letters were left to his nephew Hugh Hammersley, but have been misplaced or destroyed. The sources reviewed by this researcher almost exclusively began with the circumstances of Thomson's birth and then resumed at his entry to Harrow at roughly thirteen years of age. Education Thomson received his education at Harrow School, a privately funded public school in the Harrow district of London. After Harrow, Thomson was accepted to and enrolled at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1815. After a year he left Pembroke because he found that its science departments were lacking courses of interest to him. To sate his scientific appetite, he transferred to St John's College, Cambridge in 1816. Also, during this year Thomson "acquired the additional name Poulett, which his father had recently adopted from an earlier and aristocratic branch of his family." Once at St. John's, Thomson was introduced to Professors Edward Daniel Clarke and Adam Sedgwick who "gave him his lifelong interest in geology." At the time these men were in the early stages of their careers, Clarke having been made the first professor of mineralogy within the field of geology at St. John's; Sedgwick being known for his attention to detail and his naming of certain sections of the geologic time scale including the Cambrian. Thomson received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1821 in geology, after having performed several years of fieldwork in continental Europe. Social life After a comfortable courtship, Thomson was married to Emma Phipps Scrope on 22 March 1821. She was the heiress of William Scrope (phonetically Scroop) of Castle Combe, Wiltshire, which is north-east of Bath. She was also the great-granddaughter of Sir Robert Long, 6th Baronet. After a Royal Grant he assumed the name and arms of Scrope, in lieu of Thomson. The newly renamed George Poulett Scrope and his wife resided at Castle Combe Manor House, which the Scrope family had owned since the fourteenth century. Emma had been disabled after a riding accident soon after the marriage, and no children were born of their union. Scrope had extensive alterations made to the 17th-century house and established formal gardens in the grounds. During the