Peter Martin Duncan

Peter Martin Duncan FRS (20 April 1821 – 28 May 1891) was an English palaeontologist.

Duncan was born at Twickenham on 20 April 1821, his father, Peter King-Duncan, a descendant of an old Scottish family, being a leather merchant; his mother was daughter of Captain R. Martin, R.N., of Ilford, Essex. He received his earlier education first at the grammar school, Twickenham, next at Nyon, by the lake of Geneva, after which he was apprenticed in 1840 to a medical practitioner in London.

In 1842, Duncan entered on the medical side at King's College, London, passing through it with distinction, and being elected an associate in 1849, after graduating as M.B. at the university of London in 1846. For a time he was assistant to Dr. Martin at Rochester, and in 1848 took a practice at Colchester. Here he was also active in municipal affairs, and in 1857 was elected mayor, holding the office for a second time. The natural history and archaeology of the district also greatly attracted him, and the arrangement of the town museum was largely his work. His first scientific paper, Observations on. the Pollen Tube, was published in 1856 in the Proceedings of the Edinburgh Botanical Society, but it was soon followed by others. In 1860 he removed to Blackheath, thus obtaining more time for science, and devoting himself especially to the study of corals.

More complete freedom was obtained by election to the professorship of geology at King's College in 1870, of which he became a fellow in the following year, and shortly afterwards he was appointed professor of geology at Cooper's Hill College. In 1877 he settled in London near Regent's Park, residing there till 1883, when he removed to Gunnersbury.

Duncan became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1849, was secretary from 1864 to 1870, and president 1876 to 1878, receiving the Wollaston Medal in 1881. He was president of the geological section of the British Association at the meeting in 1879; was also a fellow of the Zoological and the Linnean Societies, holding office in both, and an active member of the Microscopical Society, being president from 1881 to 1883. He was elected F.R.S. on 4 June 1868.

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