William Parker Foulke (1816–1865) discovered the first full

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

in North America (''

Hadrosaurus ''Hadrosaurus'' (; ) is a genus of hadrosaurid ornithopod dinosaurs that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous Period in what is now the Woodbury Formation about 80 million to 78 million years ago. The holotype specimen was found in f ...

foulkii'', which means "Foulke's big lizard") in

Haddonfield, New Jersey :''Not the fictional Illinois town from the Halloween film series.'' Haddonfield is a borough located in Camden County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough had a total population of 11,593,

in 1858. Born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and a descendant of Welsh Quakers who had emigrated in 1698, William Parker Foulke was an abolitionist, prison reformer, pamphleteer, philanthropist, lawyer, historian and geologist, the last of which directly led to the discovery, which was partially named for him by

Joseph Leidy Joseph Mellick Leidy (September 9, 1823 – April 30, 1891) was an American paleontologist, parasitologist and anatomist. Leidy was professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, later was a professor of natural history at Swarthmore ...

and for which he is now best-known. Foulke was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1841, though the law could hardly be said to be his life's work. Four years later he began an association with the two reforms that would occupy so much time and energy in his short life. Sensitized to the problems of incarceration through his legal training, Foulke joined the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries in Public Prisons in July 1845. Foulke spent several years comparing alternative disciplinary models and writing on correctional issues in the ''Journal on Prison Discipline and Philanthropy''. Following a tour of mid-Atlantic correctional institutions in 1847 and 1848, Foulke was instrumental in erecting the new

Lancaster County Prison The Lancaster County Prison is a county prison located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the United States. It is located on East King Street in Lancaster City. The prison was originally built in 1851 and renovated in 1972. The present medieval-style ...

, and contributed materially to later penitentiaries in several other counties in Pennsylvania. He was associated with the American Association for Improvement of Prison Discipline and the Convention of State Prison Wardens. Foulke also supported the Pennsylvania Colonization Society, an antislavery organization that resettled as many as 1,000 freed slaves per year in West Africa (

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

). Despite mounting opposition from different sides, Foulke never wavered in his support for resettlement until his own death in 1865, by which time he was Vice-President of the Society. Foulke financially supported the American Academy of Music, and was a member of the

Academy of Natural Sciences The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1812, by many of the leading natura ...

(Philadelphia), the

Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a long-established research facility, based in Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chronicles, maps, press reports and v ...

, and, like his grandfather John Foulke (1757–1796), the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

. He was an avid natural historian and geologist, supportive of the first arctic explorations.

Family

In 1855, Foulke married Julia DeVeaux Powel (died 1884), daughter of Col.

John Hare Powel John Hare Powel (April 22, 1786 – June 14, 1856) was an American agriculturist, politician, art collector and philanthropist from Pennsylvania. Early life and education He was born John Powel Hare in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest ...

, with whom he had seven children. He died on June 18, 1865.

References

External links

Full-length portrait

Foulke Family AssociationWillian Parker Foulke Papers
at the American Philosophic Society
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 10
Obituary Notice, p. 484.
William Parker Foulke's ''Discourse in commemoration of the founding of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia'' (Philadelphia, 1854)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foulke, William Parker 1816 births 1865 deaths Lawyers from Philadelphia American paleontologists American abolitionists 19th-century American historians 19th-century American male writers Pennsylvania lawyers Quakers from Pennsylvania American people of Welsh descent Place of birth missing Place of death missing Prison reformers Members of the American Philosophical Society Activists from Philadelphia Historians from Pennsylvania Quaker abolitionists 19th-century American lawyers American male non-fiction writers