Passing through London on his return he had breakfast with Sir Roderick Murchison, who took him to the Geological Society. This was in March 1832, when he was little more than 15. Certainly his entrance into the scientific world was made easy for him. Would it be made equally easy now for a boy in a similar position? In the same year, 1832, Williamson was articled to Mr Thomas Weddell, a medical practitioner at Scarborough. While with him, he continued to pursue Natural History as a recreation—bird-collecting for example, and also botany. He writes, "I was then forming a collection of the plants of Eastern Yorkshire, as well as trying to master the natural classification, which was already beginning to supplant the Linnean method, so long the one universally adopted[123]."
A memoir on the rare birds of Yorkshire was communicated to the Zoological Society of London—an early work though not quite the earliest. While with Mr Weddell, Williamson contributed a number of descriptions and drawings of oolitic plants to Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora. He tells us how the drawings had to be made in the evenings on Mr Weddell's kitchen table. The plants he illustrated had for the most part been collected by his father and John Bean in a small estuarine deposit at Gristhorpe Bay. More than 30 species were thus recorded by him.
He also made diagrams to illustrate some lectures on Vegetable Physiology given by Mr Weddell at the Mechanics' Institution. It is rather surprising to find that such a course was given in a country town during the early 'thirties. Probably the learning displayed was not very deep, for Mrs Marcet's Conversations seem to have been the chief authority.
In 1834-36 Williamson published important papers, determining geological zones, from the Lias to the Cornbrash, by means of their fossils; subsequently he extended his zoning work up to the Oxford Clay.
The opening of the Gristhorpe tumulus in July 1834, when a skeleton, of the Bronze Age, was found in a coffin fashioned out of the trunk of an oak-tree, gave occasion to Williamson's one contribution to archaeology. His memoir was reprinted in the Literary Gazette for October 18, 1834 (still before he was 18). This was through Dr Buckland's influence; in a letter to Williamson he said, "I am happy to have been instrumental in bringing before the public a name to which I look forward as likely to figure in the annals of British Science." A second and third edition of this paper were called for.
In September 1835 Williamson was appointed curator of the Museum of the Manchester Natural History Society, and so began his long connection with the great northern town, lasting down to 1892. In those days the interest in the vigorous young science of geology was extraordinarily keen, and there was great activity, especially among the naturalists of the North, many of whom were working men. Williamson, about 1838, gave a course of lectures on geology at various northern towns, and thus raised funds for his removal to London, to continue his medical studies. It is interesting to find that Williamson, while at Manchester, helped to nurse John Dalton in his last illness.
While curator at Manchester, Williamson saw the rise of Binney as a geologist.
His remarks on the local study of botany at that time are interesting. "The botanical interests of the district were chiefly in the hands of the operative community. The hills between Lancashire and Yorkshire swarmed with botanical and floricultural societies, who met on Sundays, the only day when it was possible to do so[124]." Some of these men must have had an excellent education, as shown by the good English they wrote, as for example Richard Buxton, a poor working man, author of a standard Botanical Guide. The society to which Buxton belonged had, in 1849, existed for nearly a century. It may be doubted whether an equal enthusiasm for science still prevails in that or in any part of England.
In September 1840 Williamson went to London to complete his medical training, and entered University College, making the acquaintance of Prof. Lindley, who had for so long known him only as a correspondent and collaborator.
Soon afterwards he was offered the post of naturalist to the Niger expedition, which he refused, and, as it turned out fortunately, for the journey proved disastrous. Stanger, of Stangeria fame, took his place.