James Croll
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James Croll FRS |
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| Born | January 2, 1821 |
| Died | December 15, 1890 (aged 69) |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Occupation | Scientist |
| Spouse(s) | Isabella Macdonald (m. 1848–90) |
James Croll, FRS, (2 January 1821 – 15 December 1890) was a 19th-century Scottish scientist who developed a theory of climate change based on changes in the Earth's orbit.
James Croll was born in 1821 on the farm of Little Whitefield, near Wolfhill in Perthshire, Scotland (NO1733). He was largely self-educated. At 16 he became an apprentice wheelwright at Collace near Wolfhill, and then because of health problems a tea merchant in Elgin, Moray. He married Isabella Macdonald in 1848.
In the 1850s he managed a temperance hotel in Blairgowrie, and was then an insurance agent in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leicester. In 1859, he became a janitor at the museum of the Andersonian University in Glasgow. He was able to use the university library to get access to books, and taught himself physics and astronomy to develop his ideas.
From 1864, Croll corresponded with Sir Charles Lyell, on links between ice ages and variations in the Earth's orbit. This led to a position in the Edinburgh office of the Geological Survey of Scotland, as keeper of maps and correspondence, where the director, Sir Archibald Geikie, encouraged his research. He published a number of books and papers which "were at the forefront of contemporary science", including Climate and Time, in Their Geological Relations in 1875. He corresponded with Charles Darwin on erosion by rivers.
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