Palaeontologist
Frederick McCoy was first and foremost a palaeontologist. A precocious writer of scientific works, his formative museum experience was arranging the collections of the Geological Society of Dublin while still in his teens. In 1841 he met Adam Sedgwick of Cambridge University, then one of Europe's foremost geologists.
At the time of his appointment to the position of the Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Melbourne in 1854, McCoy was regarded as one of the 'leading general palaeontologists in Britain'1. His major work, Synopsis of the British Palaeozoic Rocks and Fossil, was published in 1855.
Soon after McCoy's arrival in Melbourne he was appointed as Palaeontologist to the Geological Survey in Victoria. Having previously identified fossils under Sedgwick's direction at the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, he had a clear understanding of a stratigraphic sequence in the Northern Hemisphere.
McCoy examined a wide range of local fossil material at the University of Melbourne and observed that Australian stratigraphy roughly correlated with that of the Northern Hemisphere. In doing so he confirmed for the first time that the geological column was a global phenomenon2.
In 1858 McCoy commenced work on the Prodromus of the Palaeontology of Victoria, issued by subscription from 1874 to 1882. Artists such as Ludwig Becker, Frederick Schoenfeld and Arthur Bartholomew expertly illustrated significant Australian fossils while McCoy provided specimen descriptions.
As with his other areas of endeavour, McCoy's extraordinary achievements were marred by his propensity to become embroiled in interminable conflict. From 1847 until the 1878 death of his opponent, Rev. William Clark, the two men argued vociferously about the respective age of coals in NSW and Victoria.
In the end they were both right, as the coal-bearing rocks were laid down in quite different geological eras.3
1Thomas A Darragh, 'Frederick McCoy: the Irish Years, The Victorian Naturalist, pp. 160-164.
2Doug McCann, 'Frederick McCoy and his Contributions to Stratigraphical Palaeontology' The Victorian Naturalist, pp. 165-177.
3Roger Pierson, 'McCoy and Clarke: their Dispute Over the Age of Australia's Black Coal' The Victorian Naturalist, pp. 219-225.