Who is Axminster's most Wikipedia'ed resident?

Can you guess who is the most searched-for person on Wikipedia in Axminster?

Digital Publication The Pudding has created a people map of the UK, replacing town names with their 'most Wikipedia-ed' resident.

This person could be someone who was born in, lived or has connections with the town.

Axminster is undoubtedly most famous for its carpet-making industry, but its most Wikipedia'ed resident was known for his interest and achievements in the natural world, not in manufacturing.

Can you guess?

Drumroll please...

According to the map, Axminster's most Wikipedia'ed person is Dr William Buckland - geologist and ordained Anglican priest - who was born in Axminster on March 12 1784.

William was the eldest son of Rev Charles Buckland and his first wife Elizabeth (née Oke). 'The Book of the Axe' George Pulman identifies the house where his parents lived as "the house which stands on the eastern side of the entrance to Stony Lane on the Lyme Road opposite Lea Combe House and Terrace Lodge".

His father Charles was the curate of Colyton (1776 to 1789), rector of Templeton, near Tiverton (1776), rector of Trusham, near Chudleigh (1793), and rector of West Chelborough, near Beaminster (1795). For all his married life, Charles lived in Axminster, and his father-in-law John Oke was a landowner at Combpyne, where his family had been established for several generations.

A biography of Dr William Buckland compiled by Axminster Heritage Centre reads: "Although not the first English geologist, he did as much as anyone to channel the emerging knowledge into a scientific framework which, a generation before Darwin, rendered a literal reading of the Bible untenable.

"In 1819 he was appointed professor of geology and mineralogy at Oxford, and in 1824 was elected president of the Geological Society. He was inquisitive, rigorous and collaborative (a rare combination in a leading scientist) and a noted communicator, via lectures, sermons, books and scientific papers."

Dr William Buckland's contacts included Lyme Regis' famous fossil hunter Mary Anning, who unsurprisingly was named the seaside town's most Wikipedia'ed resident according The Pudding's map.

An unpublished letter, sent from Mary Anning to Dr Buckland in 1829, describing her latest discoveries on the Jurassic Coast, sold at auction earlier this year for a staggering £100,800.

In the letter, Anning explained that she had delayed sending Dr Buckland specimens because the recent frost had affected her work on the cliffs, but she was now sending him a box, writing: "…there are few coprolites which I hope you will think good there is one with bits of Sepia in it another in marle with some remarkable bones in it one has an impression of an Ammonite."

It is believed the box of coprolites that Anning sent to Dr Buckland is now part of the collection at the Oxford Museum of Natural History.

Axminster Heritage Centre's account continues: "Buckland's knowledge and interest in geology was directly fostered by his childhood observations of the rocks and landforms around Axminster, and although he left the town as a young man, he returned frequently, not least to visit his friend, the Reverend W.D. Conybeare (himself no mean geologist) when he was the vicar of Axminster.

"Indeed, the Bucklands were staying with the Conybeares at the time of the 1839 Axmouth landslip, allowing them to make first-hand observations, illustrated by Buckland's wife Mary, whose career as an internationally-known scientific illustrator pre-dated their marriage in 1825.

"In 1845 he was recommended by Sir Robert Peel (the Prime Minister) to the post of Dean of Westminster, where his energetic reforms and improvements to the Abbey and to Westminster school caused Sir Robert to describe this as the appointment of which he was most proud.

"Unfortunately, in 1848 Buckland and two of his daughters fell ill with typhoid when the drains at Westminster were disturbed by workmen. Although he recovered, it was not long thereafter that he started to suffer from debilitating depression, making his final years uncharacteristically unproductive.

"He died in 1855, a year before the publication of Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species'."

You can read more about Dr William Buckland on the Axminster Heritage Centre website.