Henry Testot-Ferry

Henry Bernard Alfred Testot-Ferry also known as Henry de Ferry (5 February 1826, La Chapelle-la-Reine, Seine-et-Marne – 9 November 1869, Bussières, Saône-et-Loire) was a French geologist, archeologist and paleontologist. He was discoverer of the prehistoric site at the Rock of Solutré.

Testot-Ferry was the youngest son of Baron Claude Testot-Ferry and his wife Joséphine Elizabeth Claudine Fabry. Henry's father was a hero of the Napoleonic Wars who had been ennobled by Emperor Napoleon I and died at Châtillon-sur-Seine.

After a somewhite idle youth typical of the "gilded youth" of the 19th century, in which hunting was his chief passion, he married in 1852, at the advice (or perhaps the insistence) of his older brother Gustave. His wife was Louise Madeleine O'Brien, descendant of the O'Brien clan of Munster, which had given rise to several Kings of Ireland, and which had been received to courtly honours under Louis XV of France in 1737. O'Brien brought as dowry her property at Prissé, Saône-et-Loire which they occupied until moving to settle down in the village of Bussières, situated a few kilometres from the Rock of Solutré. Testot-Ferry became mayor of Bussières in 1856.

Testot-Ferry would have six children, whose lives would have nothing to do with paleontology. His son Alfred, born in 1853, became a ship lieutenant at Toulon, and was elevated to Chevalier de la légion d'honneur.

Testot-Ferry initially devoted himself to geology. A founding member of the Comité de paléontologie française, he was put in charge of monograph on fossilized cnidaria polyps in collaboration with Dr. Louis Édouard Gourdan de Fromentel. During this time he discovered and described a new genre which took his name: "Ferrya".

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