William Diller Matthew

Who was William Diller Matthew?

William Diller Matthew FRS was a vertebrate paleontologist who worked primarily on mammal fossils, although he also published a few early papers on mineralogy, petrological geology, one on botany, one on trilobites, and he described Tetraceratops insignis, which was much later suggested to be the oldest known therapsid.

Matthew was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, the son of George Frederic Matthew and Katherine Matthew. His father was an amateur geologist and paleontologist who instilled his son with an abiding interest in the earth sciences. Matthew received an A.B. at the University of New Brunswick in 1889 and then earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1894.

Matthew was curator of the American Museum of Natural History from the mid-1890s to 1927, and director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology from 1927 to 1930.