Robert Etheridge

Robert Etheridge FRS FRSE FGS (3 December 1819 – 18 December 1903) was an English geologist and palaeontologist.

Biography Etheridge was born at Ross-on-Wye, in Herefordshire, the son of Thomas Etheridge and his wife Hannah Pardoe. After an ordinary school education in his native town, he obtained employment in a business house in Bristol. There he devoted his spare time to natural history pursuits.

At the Bristol Philosophical Institution for lectures, he encountered William Sanders and Samuel Stutchbury, and in 1850 was appointed curator of its museum. He also became lecturer on botany in the Bristol medical school. In 1857, through the influence of Sir Roderick I. Murchison, he was appointed to a post in the Museum of Practical Geology in London, and eventually became palaeontologist to the Geological Survey.

The content of the statement differs in creationist books and the quote is often misattributed to Etheridge's son Robert Etheridge Jr. The origin of the quote is a letter from George Edward Post that appeared in the New York Evangelist for 10 September 1885.

It is possible that Post may have misrepresented Etheridge's views. Etheridge never wrote about the transmutation of species in his publications.