CHAPTER I

GENERAL SKETCH OF FLOWER’S LIFE

Born on 30th November 1831 at his father’s house, “The Hill,” Stratford-on-Avon, William Henry Flower was a man who had the rare good fortune not only to make a profession of the pursuit he loved best, but likewise to attain the highest possible success in, and to be appointed to the most important and influential post connected with that profession. As he tells us in that delightful book, _Essays on Museums_, he was pleased to designate as a “museum” when a boy at home a miscellaneous collection of natural history objects, kept at first in a cardboard box, but subsequently housed in a cupboard. And as a man he became the respected head of the greatest Natural History Museum in the British Empire, if not indeed in the whole world. Very significant of his future attention to details and of the importance he attached to recording the history of every specimen received in a museum, is the fact that he compiled a carefully drawn-up catalogue of his first boyish collection.

This early and persistent taste for natural history was not, as we learn from the same collection of essays, inherited from any member of either his father’s or his mother’s family, but appears to have been an “idiopathic” development. His isolated position in this respect may, perhaps, have caused Flower in later life to notice more specially than might otherwise have been the case, how comparatively rare is the development of an ingrained taste for natural history among the adult members of the British nation. This idea was exemplified by his remarking on one occasion to the present writer that he often wondered how many persons out of every thousand he passed casually in the street, or met in social intercourse, had the slightest sympathy with, or took any real interest in the subjects which formed his own favourite pursuits and lines of thought.

As regards his parentage, his father was the late Edward Fordham Flower, who was a Justice of the Peace for his county, and from whom the son inherited his tall and stately figure and dignified bearing. Edward Flower, who was a partner in the well-known brewery at Stratford-on-Avon, was the eldest son of Richard Flower, of Marden Hill, Hertfordshire, who married Elizabeth, daughter of John Fordham, of Sandon Bury, in the same county. In 1827 Edward married Celina, daughter of John Greaves, of Radford Semele, Warwickshire, by whom he had, with other issue, Charles Edward, late of Glencassly, Sutherlandshire, and William Henry, the subject of the present memoir.

Edward Fordham Flower was noted not only for his philanthropy, but for his efforts to abolish the bearing-rein, which in his time was neither more nor less than an instrument of downright torture to all carriage horses. As the result of his efforts in this direction, was founded in 1890, by Mr. C. H. Allen, of Hampstead, a small local society for that district and Highgate, having for its object the abolition, or at all events the mitigated use, of the bearing-rein for draught-horses of all descriptions. That body did good work in this direction for many years in the north of London; and by its means the Hampstead Vestry was induced to prohibit the use of the bearing-rein on the horses in its employ—an example subsequently followed by many large coal-owners and others connected with horses.

From this small beginning arose in 1897 the now flourishing society known as the Anti-Bearing Rein Association, of which, as was appropriate, Mr. Archibald Flower, a grandson of Edward Fordham Flower, became Co.-Hon. Secretary with Mr. Allen, while the late Duke of Westminster, and the late Sir W. H. Flower (the subject of this biography) respectively accepted the positions of Patron and President.

In all the obituary notices it is stated that William Henry was the second son of Edward Fordham and Celina Flower. This, however, as I am informed by Mr. Arthur S. Flower (the eldest son of Sir William), is not strictly the case. As an actual fact, the eldest son of the aforesaid Edward and Celina was really Richard, who died in infancy, so that Charles, who was born second, grew up as the eldest son, and William Henry as the second, whereas he was really the third.

The fair-haired and blue-eyed William not being intended to succeed his father in the business, was permitted from his early years—fortunately for zoological science—to pursue that innate love of natural history which, as we have seen, developed itself in very early years and continued unabated till the close of his career. That career naturally divides into three epochs. Firstly, the period of boyhood and early manhood; secondly, the long period of official life at the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons; and thirdly, the time during which the subject of this memoir occupied the post of Director of the Natural History Branch of the British Museum, together with the short interval which elapsed between his resignation of that position and his untimely death. To each of the latter periods a separate chapter is devoted. It has, however, been found convenient, instead of restricting the present chapter to the first epoch, to include within its limits a general sketch of Flower’s whole life. A fourth chapter is assigned to the period during which he was President of the Zoological Society of London, although this was synchronous with part of the period covered by the second, and with the whole of that treated of in the third chapter. Finally, the full description of his scientific work is reserved for subsequent chapters.

According to information kindly furnished by his widow, Lady Flower, delicate health prevented William Flower from being much at school during his boyhood, and he was thus largely dependent upon his mother—a sensible and well-read woman—for his early education. He was also in the habit of accompanying his father in his rides, whereby he became much interested in all that concerns horses and their well-being. Best of all, as regards opportunity for developing a love of animal life, he was in the habit of taking long, solitary rambles in the country, thereby acquiring a knowledge of Nature which could be obtained in no other manner, and developing his powers of observation.

This innate taste for natural history appears to have been further fostered in early life by frequent intercourse with the late Rev. P. B. Brodie, an enthusiastic zoologist and geologist; but whether this took place during school or college life the writer has no means of knowing. Be this as it may, it appears that after a preliminary education, partly at home and partly at private schools, Flower matriculated at London University in 1849, (the year of his present biographer’s birth), attaining honours in Zoology; and that during the same year having made up his mind to adopt the study and practice of Medicine, or of Surgery as a profession, he entered the Medical Classes at University College and became a pupil at the Middlesex Hospital. It was apparently largely, if not entirely, owing to his fondness for zoology that young Flower selected Medicine as a profession, since at the time, as indeed for many years subsequently, this was practically the only career open to young naturalists devoid of sufficient private means whereby they might hope to be able to devote a certain amount of time and attention to the pursuits—and more especially Comparative Anatomy—towards which their inclinations tended.

At University College Flower had a distinguished career, gaining the gold medal in Dr. Sharpey’s class of Physiology and Anatomy, and the silver medal in Zoology and Comparative Anatomy; the gold medal in the latter subjects having been carried off the same year by his fellow-student, Joseph Lister, who in after years became the distinguished surgeon, and, as Lord Lister, was for some time President of the Royal Society of London. In 1851—the year of the Great Exhibition—Flower passed his first M.B. examination at London University, coming out in the first division. In the same year he made a tour in Holland and Germany, while in 1853 visited France and the north of Spain; bringing home in both instances numerous sketches in pencil and sepia of the scenery and people of the countries traversed.

In all the obituary notices of Flower that have come under the present writer’s notice, it is stated that he obtained the post of Curator of the museum of the Middlesex Hospital after his return from the Crimea. This is, however, proved to be incorrect by his first zoological paper, “On the Dissection of a Species of Galago,” which was contributed to the Zoological Society of London in 1852, and appeared in the _Proceedings_ of that body for the same year, where the author describes himself as the holder of the post in question. As a matter of fact, he was elected Curator in 1854, and resigned the post in 1854.[1]

Flower never took the degree of M.D., but three years after passing his M.B. he became (on 27th March 1854) a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

A few weeks after this event a call was made for additional surgeons for the army then serving in the Crimea, and young Flower, partly, perhaps, from patriotic motives, and partly with a view of extending his practical experience in surgery, promptly volunteered his services, which were accepted. After spending a few idle months with the Depôt Battalion then stationed at Templemore, in Ireland, he was gazetted as Assistant-Surgeon to the 63rd (now the First Battalion of the Manchester) Regiment; and in July 1854 embarked with his regiment at Cork for Constantinople. On its arrival in the east the regiment was at once hurried up to join the main army at Varna, whence it proceeded to take part in the expedition to the Crimea, where both officers and men suffered severely from exposure to the inclemencies of the climate and an insufficient commissariat during the early months of the campaign. For ten weeks together, it is reported, neither officers or men took off their clothes, either by night or by day, and for the first three weeks all ranks were compelled to get such sleep as they could obtain on the bare ground. Flower, who was present at the battles of the Alma, of Inkerman, and of Balaclava, as well as at the fall of Sebastopol, underwent many and thrilling experiences during the campaign, alike in the field and in the hospital. The hardships and privations which caused the strength of his regiment to be reduced by nearly one-half within the short period of four months, could not but tell severely on the constitution of the young surgeon, which was never very robust; and from some of the effects of these he suffered throughout his life. Nevertheless, in spite of all this, in the intervals of duty, Flower, with but scant materials at his disposal, managed to find time and energy sufficient to make a considerable number of vivid pen-and-ink, or dashes of ink-and-water, sketches of his surroundings, including one of his own tent overturned by the terrible snow-storm of 14th November 1854, and a second of the wrecked condition of the camp in general at the end of the tempest. A panoramic view of Constantinople and a sketch of the military hospital at Scutari were also among his artistic productions at this period. In recognition of his services, Flower, after being invalided home, received from the hands of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, the Crimean medal, with clasps for the Alma, Inkerman, Balaclava, and Sebastopol; while he was also permitted to accept from H.M., the Sultan, the Turkish war-medal.

Apparently Flower had never entertained the idea of taking up the profession of an army surgeon as a permanency, and after his return to London he definitely resigned military service, with the intention of settling down to private medical practice in the Metropolis. In the spring of 1857 he passed the examination qualifying for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons; and about this time, or perhaps immediately on his return to London, he joined the staff of the Middlesex Hospital as Demonstrator in Anatomy. During the next year (1858) he was elected to the post of Assistant-Surgeon to the same Institution, where he resumed the Curatorship of the museum and was also appointed Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy. Although a large portion of his time while at the hospital was devoted to surgical and other duties connected with the medical profession, his Lectureship and Curatorship required that he should devote a considerable amount of attention to the more congenial study of Comparative Anatomy.

It was during his connection with the Middlesex Hospital that his first scientific work was published, this being the well-known and useful little volume entitled _Diagrams of the Nerves of the Human Body_, which appeared in 1861, and has passed through three editions. During this period of his career he also contributed to Holmes’ _System of Surgery_ an article on “Injuries to the Upper Extremities,” which contained certain original observations with regard to dislocations of the shoulder-joint; and he likewise wrote an essay on the same subject to the Pathological Society, as well as several articles on various surgical subjects to the medical journals of the day. But even at this comparatively early period of his career Flower’s published scientific work was by no means strictly confined to his ostensible profession, for his two first papers on Comparative Anatomy—the one “On the Dissection of a Galago”(Lemur); and the other “On the Posterior Lobes of the Cerebrum of the Quadrumana”—appeared during the period in question. During this period, as the writer of his obituary notice in the “Record” of the Royal Society well remarks, there is little doubt that Flower had breathing time, after his Crimean experiences, to collect his energies and gather up a store of valuable information which stood him in good stead in later years, when he had frequently less leisure to devote to pure study.

It was, moreover, during his official connection with the Middlesex Hospital that Mr. Flower married Georgina Rosetta, the youngest daughter of the late Admiral W. H. Smyth, C.S.I., etc., a well-known astronomer, who was for some time Hydrographer to the Admiralty and likewise Foreign Secretary to the Royal Society, the wedding taking place in 1858 at the church of Stone, in Buckinghamshire, near the bride’s home. This happy union had in many ways an important influence upon the future career of the young surgeon, for, in addition to her father, several of the relatives of Mrs. (now Lady) Flower were more or less intimately connected with scientific work and scientific people; among them being Sir Warrington Smyth (sometime Inspector-General of Mines), Professor Piazzi Smyth, General Sir Henry Smyth, and Sir George Baden-Powell. It was to Lady Flower that Sir William dedicated his last work, the volume entitled _Essays on Museums_. A tour through Belgium and up the Rhine followed the marriage.

Although it scarcely comes within the purview of this biography to allude to the issue of this marriage, it may be mentioned that of the three sons born to Sir William Flower, the second alone, Stanley Smyth, inherited his father’s zoological tastes. Captain S. S. Flower (who takes his first name from Dean Stanley, of Westminster, an intimate friend of the family), after serving for some time in the 5th Fusileers, obtained the appointment of Director of the Royal Museum at Bangkok, Siam, after which he was made Director of the Khedival Zoological Gardens at Giza, near Cairo, to which post (which he still holds) was subsequently added that of Superintendent of Game Protection in the Sudan. Captain Flower has not only raised the menagerie at Giza to a high state of perfection, but has contributed several papers to the _Proceedings_ of the Zoological Society of London on the zoology of Siam and the Malay countries.

To revert to the proper subject of this memoir, during his tenure of the aforesaid official posts at the Middlesex Hospital it was apparent to his intimate scientific friends—among whom were included the late Professor T. H. Huxley and the late Mr. George Busk—that the inclinations of Flower were all on the side of comparative anatomy rather than towards practical surgery or medicine. Accordingly, when the appointment of Conservator to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons became vacant in 1861 by the death of Mr. Quekett, Flower was strongly recommended by Huxley (then Hunterian Professor), Busk, and other friends as a suitable successor, and was in due course elected by the Council. When, nine years later (1870), Huxley himself felt compelled by the pressure of other engagements and work to resign the Hunterian Professorship, the Conservator of the Museum was appointed to the vacant chair, thus once more bringing together two posts which had been sundered since Owen’s resignation.

On his appointment to the Conservatorship of the Museum of the College of Surgeons, Flower once for all definitely abandoned medicine as a profession, and determined to devote the whole of his energies for the future to the study of his beloved comparative anatomy and zoology. Nevertheless, he always remained in touch with his old profession, as he was always in sympathy with those who were actively practising the same. Indeed, since the collections under his charge included a large pathological series, while during his tenure of office a large display of surgical instruments was added to the exhibits, he could not, even had he so desired, cut himself entirely adrift from old associations and old studies.

Since a considerable amount of space in a later chapter is devoted to Flower’s work as Museum Curator and as Hunterian Lecturer, it will be unnecessary to allude further to it in this place, although it will be appropriate to quote the elogium on his efforts in this sphere, pronounced by the President of the Royal Society, when bestowing the Royal Gold Medal in recognition of his services to zoology.

“It is very largely due,” runs the address, “to his incessant and well-directed labour that the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons at present contains the most complete, the best ordered, and the most accessible collection of materials for the study of vertebrate structures extant.”

As regards his Hunterian lectures, it has been well remarked that few could have any idea of the amount of labour they involved, nor would any one be likely to guess this from the ever-ready and earnest efforts of the lecturer to give to others that knowledge he had so laboriously, and yet so pleasantly, acquired within the walls of the museum.

In addition to the official Hunterian lectures, Flower during this portion of his career commenced the delivery, as opportunity occurred, of lectures of a much more popular description, at the Royal Institution and elsewhere, by means of which he appealed to a wider audience than any that could be attracted to technical discourses, and at the same time was enabled to give a wide circulation to the discussion of subjects connected with his own special studies which had more or less of a general interest. In one of his earlier discourses of this type he discussed at considerable detail the deformities produced in the human foot by badly-designed boots or other covering among both civilised and barbarous nations. Indeed, “fashion in deformity” was at all times a favourite theme with the Hunterian Professor; and in a lecture on this subject he uttered, for him, a strong protest against the evils caused by the corset among European females, illustrating his remarks with a ghastly figure of a female skeleton distorted by the undue pressure of that fashionable article of costume.

In 1871, and again in later years, Professor Flower acted as Examiner in Zoology for the Natural Science Tripos at Cambridge, where his suave and dignified manner, and innate courtliness rendered him as great a favourite as in the Metropolis. He was during some portion of his career Examiner in Anatomy at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

Flower’s official connection with the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons was brought to a close by Owen’s resignation of the Post of Superintendent of the Natural History Department of the British Museum, when it was felt by all that the efficient and successful administrator of the smaller museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, was the one man specially fitted in every way to have supreme charge of the larger establishment in the Cromwell Road. Professor Flower was accordingly selected by the three principal trustees—the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons—to fill this important post, into the duties of which he entered during the same year. His administration of the museum—which lasted until he was compelled by failing health to send in his resignation a few months before his death—is fully discussed in the fourth chapter, and was in every way a complete success.

During his long and successful official career Sir William was the recipient of a number of honours (in addition to the medals he received for his Crimean service), and he was likewise on the roll of the more important societies connected with the branches of biological study in which he was specially interested.

Of the Royal Society Sir William was elected a Fellow in 1864—at the relatively early age of thirty-three—and he served on the Council of that body for three separate periods, namely from 1868 to 1870, from 1876 to 1878, and again from 1884 to 1886, while in 1884 and 1885 he was one of the Vice-Presidents. In 1882 his conspicuous services to zoological science was recognised by the bestowal upon him of a Royal Gold Medal—one of the most honourable distinctions in the gift of the Society; the other recipient in the same year of a similar honour being Lord Rayleigh. In handing to Professor Flower this medal, the President dwelt upon the value of his contributions to both zoology and anthropology, referring, in connection with the former science, to his paper on the classification of the Carnivora, and, in respect to the latter, to the then recently published first part of the “Catalogue of Osteological Specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons,” in which descriptions and measurements of between 1300 and 1400 human skulls are recorded. The present writer has been informed that Flower refused to be nominated for the Presidentship of the Royal Society, owing to the fear that the calls made upon his time by that office would interfere with his official duties. Of the Zoological Society Professor Flower became a Fellow so long ago as the year 1851, that is to say, three years previous to the commencement of his Crimean service. After serving for several periods on the Council he was elected to the honourable (and honorary) office of President on the death of the Marquis of Tweeddale in 1879, and in this important position he remained till his death. It should be added that Flower never received one of the medals of the Zoological Society, and this for the very good reason that such rewards are bestowed in recognition of gifts to the Society’s Menagerie, and not for contributions to zoological knowledge. Flower’s contributions to both the _Transactions_ and the _Proceedings_ of the Society were numerous, and, needless to say, valuable; the earliest in the former having been published in 1866, and in the latter in 1852. With very few exceptions, these communications relate to mammals. Fuller details with regard to Sir William’s Presidency of the Zoological Society will be found in a later chapter.

Of the Linnean Society, Flower was elected a Fellow in 1862, but he does not appear to have ever taken any active part in the administration of that body, or to have contributed to its publications, although for a time he was a Vice-President.

To the Geological Society, on the other hand, of which he became a Fellow in the year 1886, Sir William contributed three papers on paleontological subjects, by far the most important of which was one on the affinities and probable habits of the extinct Australian marsupial _Thylacoleo_. Further allusion to this is made in the sequel. Of the other two, one recorded the occurrence of teeth of the bear-like _Hyænarctus_ in the Red Crag of Suffolk, and the other that of a skull of the manatee-like _Halitherium_ in the same formation.

Of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Flower was elected a Vice-President in 1879, while in 1883 he succeeded to the Presidential chair, and occupied that position till 1885. Of his numerous contributions to anthropological science, many appeared in the journal of the Institute.

In the annual meetings of the British Association for the advancement of science, Flower, from an early date, took a lively interest. At the Norwich meeting, in 1868, he acted as Vice-President of the section of Biology, while he was President of the same section at the Dublin meeting of 1878. At York he presided over the section of Anthropology in 1881; he was a Vice-President at the Aberdeen meeting of 1885, while for the second time he occupied the Presidential chair of the Anthropological section in 1894 at Oxford, when his opening address on Anthropological progress displayed great breadth of thought and generalisation. Finally, he was President of the Association at the meeting held in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1889, his address at the latter meeting forming the first article in _Essays on Museums_.

Among other offices of a kindred nature to the above, it may be mentioned that Sir William was President of the section of Anatomy at the International Medical Congress held in London in August 1881. His address on that occasion (reprinted as article 7 of the volume just cited) being on the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. In July 1893 he acted as President of the Museum’s Association at their London meeting, when, after referring to the general scope of that body, and a brief survey of some of the chief museums of Europe, he sketched out a plan for an ideal building of this nature. This address also appears in _Essays on Museums_. Sir William, the year before his death, had also undertaken to preside over the meeting of the International Zoological Congress held at Cambridge in the summer of 1898, but was prevented by failing health; his place being filled by Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock). On 29th November 1895, Sir William Flower delivered an address at the opening of the Perth Museum, in which he pointed out the special function of local museums. Five years earlier (3rd November 1890) he had delivered another address on a very similar occasion, namely, the opening of the Booth Museum, in the Dyke Road, Brighton, famed for its unrivalled collection of British birds, the great majority of which had been shot and subsequently mounted in a most artistic manner by its founder. This splendid collection, it may be mentioned, was bequeathed at Mr. Booth’s death to the British Museum, but it was reluctantly declined by the Trustees, who waived their right in favour of the Corporation of Brighton. At the end of October 1896, Sir William, then in failing health, somewhat rashly undertook a journey to Scotland to assist Lord Reay in the inauguration of the Gatty Marine Laboratory at St. Andrews.

Another important address delivered by Flower was one read before the Church Congress at their meeting, held in October 1883, at Reading, on “Recent Advances in Natural Science in Relation to the Christian Faith.” It is reprinted in _Essays on Museums_. In this address Flower, while proclaiming his full adherence to the doctrine of the transmutation of species and the evolution of every organic form from a pre-existing type, urged that this did not in the least shake his confidence in all the essential teaching of the Christian religion. At the same time he pointed out that the new doctrine in no wise detracted from the position of the Divine Ruler of the world as the controller, and indeed the originator, of animal development.

Shortly after his retirement from the post of Conservator, Professor Flower was elected a Trustee of the Hunterian Collection of the Royal College of Surgeons. Many years later, in 1881, he became a Trustee of Sir John Soane’s Museum, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Mention has already been made of the fact that in an early stage of his career Sir William became an M.B. of London, and that later on he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. In addition to these professional qualifications, he was also the recipient of honorary degrees from the two elder Universities. Thus in 1891 he was made a D.C.L. of Oxford, the public orator of the University, when the degree was conferred, acclaiming him as a living proof of the truth of the old saying, ἀρχή ἄνδρα δειξει, attributed to one of the seven wise men of Greece, and as a man who had passed with increasing distinction from one important official post to another; and he was likewise a D.Sc. of Cambridge. But this by no means exhausts the list of his academic honours, Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and Trinity College, Dublin, claiming him on their roll of honorary LL.D.’s, while in 1889 he received from Durham the degree of D.C.L. The Edinburgh degree, it may be mentioned, was conferred on the occasion of the celebration of the tercentenary of the University. Sir William was also a Ph.D.

Nor were Flower’s conspicuous services to zoological science suffered to remain unrecognised by the Government of his country, for he was created a C.B. in 1887, three years after his first appointment to the British Museum, and five years later (1892) followed the higher distinction of the K.C.B. But this does not exhaust the list of official honours, for in 1887 Sir William received from Her Majesty, the late Queen Victoria, the Jubilee Medal. Had he lived to the date of its foundation, it is possible that Flower might have been admitted by his Sovereign as one of the original members of the Order of Merit.

From His Majesty the German Emperor Sir William Flower received the distinction of the Royal Prussian order, “Pour la Mérite,” an honour of which he was justly very proud. As a distinguished friend pointed out in his letter of congratulation on learning of the new distinction, “it is the one European decoration which an Englishman may be proud to wear, and bestowed, as I believe it to be, with the sanction of the very few who have already got it. It is the one order which real work, apart from rank and wealth and courtiers’ trick, alone can win.” As another eminent friend described it on the same occasion, it is truly “the blue riband of literary and scientific decorations.”

Numerous foreign scientific societies, it is almost unnecessary to observe, were proud to claim the name of Sir William Flower on the list of their honorary members or associates. It is however by no means easy to give a complete list of these honourable distinctions, for Flower was not one who followed the fashion of adding every possible combination of letters to his name in every book or paper he wrote. Perhaps the most important of these distinctions was that of Foreign Correspondent of the Institute of France. Among other societies and academies to which he belonged, were those of the Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium.

Although Flower’s scientific writings are discussed at length in the later chapters of this memoir, it may be mentioned in this place that during the “eighties” he contributed an important series of articles to the ninth edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica.” At the commencement of that great undertaking, although the article “Ape” was confided to the competent hands of the late Professor St. George Mivart, some of the other articles, such as the one on “Antelope,” were entrusted to writers who, whatever their other merits may have been, had certainly no claim to be regarded as specialists on the subject of mammals. It was not long before this was recognised by the publishers, who forthwith engaged for this section of the work the services of Flower, supplemented by those of the late Dr. Dobson and Mr. O. Thomas. Among the more important articles by Flower were those on the Horse, Kangaroo, Lemur, Lion, Mammalia (in co-operation with Dr. Dobson), Megatherium, Otter, Platypus, Rhinoceros, Seal, Tapir, and Whale. These and other articles, together with the one on Ape by Professor Mivart and several on the smaller mammals by Mr. Thomas, were subsequently combined and revised to form the basis of the _Study of Mammals Living and Extinct_, by Sir William Flower and the present writer, and was published by Messrs. A. & C. Black in 1891, which long formed the standard English work on the subject, although now, owing to the rapid progress in zoology and the great change which has taken place in nomenclature, is somewhat out of date.

The excellent little volume on _The Horse_ in Sir John Lubbock’s (Lord Avebury) _Modern Science Series_, published in 1891, and the _Essays on Museums_ (1898), also appeared during this portion of Flower’s career.

Although so largely occupied in the study of mammals and other creatures from distant parts of the world, Sir William never travelled much, and never visited little-known regions or did any important collecting abroad. In addition to his Crimean experiences, and the journeys in Holland, France, and the Rhine country, to which allusion has been already made, his foreign tours appear to have been but few. In the winter of 1873-74 he was, however, enabled to enjoy a trip up the Nile in company with Mrs. Flower, and he visited Biarritz in 1892. During the former excursion he made a number of sketches which bear ample testimony to his powers as an artist. With his great knowledge of anatomy, it may be here mentioned, coupled with his skill with the pencil, he enjoyed a great advantage over many contemporary zoologists in being able to draw accurate and life-like portraits of the animals he loved so well. Nevertheless, if only from lack of time, he never attempted to illustrate with his own hand any of his numerous scientific contributions—at all events in later years. Owing to need for complete rest, after a short sojourn in the early part of 1897 at Marazion, on the south coast of Cornwall, he spent much of the following winter abroad; and after his resignation of the Directorship of the Museum in 1898, he spent the following winter at San Remo, from which he returned less than two months before his death.

As regards the closing scenes of his life, a very few words must suffice. For the last two years of his existence he had evidently been in failing health, largely due to his incessant exertions and from his refusal to spare himself, even when warned of the absolute necessity of so doing by his medical adviser. In August 1898, after a long period during which he had been compelled to devote little or no attention to his official duties, he placed his resignation of the Directorship of the Museum in the hands of the Trustees. The aforesaid sojourn at San Remo during the following winter effected some slight temporary improvement in his health, but on his return to London, in May 1899, it was painfully apparent that his constitution—never too robust—was shattered beyond hope of permanent recovery. And, after a slight temporary rally, from his malady of heart-failure, a sharp relapse occurred on Thursday, 29th June, followed by pneumonia, and on Saturday, 1st July, Sir William Flower passed peacefully away, at the age of sixty-seven years, at his residence, 26 Stanhope Gardens, London.

A memorial service was held on the following Wednesday at St. Luke’s Church, Sidney Street, Chelsea, which was attended by a large and sympathetic congregation of friends and scientific men, including Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, the Chief Librarian and Director of the British Museum, and Professor E. Ray Lankester, Sir William’s successor in the Directorship of the Natural History Branch of the same.

Sir William was undoubtedly a man of high and noble character, endeared to all with whom he was brought into intimate relations by his unfailing courtesy and charm of manner. To the present writer, it may be said perhaps without undue egotism, he was a friend and counsellor such as cannot be expected more than once in a life-time.

No better summary of Sir William’s general character and high attributes can perhaps be given (certainly the present writer cannot attempt to rival it) than the one drawn up by his biographer in the “Year-book” of the Royal Society for 1901, which may accordingly be quoted _in extenso_:—

“In private life no one was more beloved and esteemed. He was in every sense a domestic man, finding the highest joys that life brought him with his family and children. The same courtly bearing and high tone, the same preference for all that was good, was in private circles mingled with the same genial smile, the fascinating account of something interesting or novel, and the respect and deference to others, which was part of his upright, unselfish nature. Many a young naturalist will gratefully remember the kind encouragement and valued advice he was ever ready to offer, and the stimulus which the sympathetic interest of a leader in the department gave him.

“In the busy life of Sir William and in the constant calls on brain and nervous system—strong though these were—there came times when a feeling of lassitude with headache and spinal uneasiness, if not prostration, showed that the indoor life and the strain of many duties had told with severity both on the central nervous system and on the heart. His annual holiday sufficed in many cases to recruit his energies, especially when he visited Scotland and the charming home of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Drummond, of Megginch. There he met other friends, such as Dean and Lady Augusta Stanley [after whom a son and a daughter were respectively named] and Colonel Drummond-Hay, of Seggieden, brother of Mr. Drummond. Moreover, he was always interested in the splendid collection of birds made by Colonel Drummond-Hay during his wanderings with the Black Watch.”

Another passage from the same memoir of his life runs as follows:—

“One side of Sir William’s life deserves special notice, viz., his social influence, and the endeavour to popularise the great institution with which he was officially connected. These influences, developed at the Museum of the College of Surgeons with great success, were brought to bear on a much wider circle in connection with the National Museum and as President of the Zoological Society; and no one was more fitted than he—either for the courtly circle or the large gatherings of working men who flocked on Saturday afternoons to the galleries of the museum. In all his many and varied social functions in his prominent positions he was ably seconded by one who identified herself with his every engagement, and to whom his last volume of collected addresses was dedicated. A man of wide sympathies, he is found at one time addressing a Civil Service dinner, at another a Volunteer gathering, now descanting on evolution to a Church Congress, and again speaking at a Mayoral banquet, a girls’ school, or an industrial exhibition. The strain on his physique demanded by these efforts would have been great to an ordinary man, but it must have been serious to one whose main energies were heavily taxed by exhausting scientific work. His powerful constitution was thus slowly but surely sapped, yet to an eager mind and a generous heart, such as his, little heed was paid to himself....

“Taken all in all, we shall not soon see so talented and so accurate a comparative anatomist, so impressive a speaker, so facile an artist, or a public man with a higher type of character.”

The zoological and anthropological side of Sir William’s work (with which the present writer is more competent to deal than he is with his social relations and character) is discussed at length in later chapters of this memoir; but a few observations may be here introduced on subjects which scarcely come within the category of purely scientific work.

At intervals during his life-time Flower communicated a considerable number of letters to the _Times_ and other journals on topics more or less intimately connected with animals and animal life. His sympathy with the crusade against the tight bearing-rein, initiated by his father, has already received mention. Equally marked was his sympathy with the movement against the wearing by ladies of the plumage of birds (other than game-birds, etc.), and more especially the so-called “osprey plumes”—really the breeding-plumes of the egrets and white herons—in the so-called decoration of their bonnets and hats. The extreme cruelty involved—at least in the case of the “ospreys”—in this practice, which entails the destruction of the birds during the nesting-season, when these nuptial plumes are alone donned, and consequently in many instances the destruction of the helpless young by slow starvation, was painted in forcible language by more than one letter from Flower’s pen. Happily, as the result of these and other letters from sympathetic naturalists, and the foundation of the Society for the Protection of Birds (whose general aims were likewise strongly advocated by Sir William), this detestable practice has been much diminished of late years, although very much remains to be done in this way before there can be any pretence of saying that birds, even in this country, are treated by man as they deserve.

On another occasion he wrote, deprecating the wholesale destruction of bottle-nosed whales, which had been advocated on account of the enormous quantities of fishes devoured by these cetaceans. The question of pelagic sealing in Bering Sea, and the best way of preventing unnecessary slaughter, and thus eventual extermination, of the sea-bears and sea-lions which visit the Pribiloff Islands, also occupied his attention. And to him was confided the duty of selecting the naturalists (Professor d’Arcy Thompson and Captain Barrett-Hamilton) who represented British interests in the International Commission despatched to those islands in 1896 and 1897, to report on the sealing generally and the habits of the sea-bears, or fur-seals.

The best mode of disposing of the bodies of the dead was also a subject to which Sir William devoted a share of his attention, and he was a strong advocate for cremation, or, failing this, for burial in wicker caskets in light sandy soil.

The effects of the weather on “Cleopatra’s Needle” a comparatively short time after it had been set up on the Thames Embankment; the best means of utilising and beautifying the gardens in Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and the anomaly that while a heavy book could be sent by post for a few pence, the charge on a heavy letter, at the time in question, was considerable, were among many other miscellaneous topics upon which he wrote.

In conversation it was Sir William’s great delight, whenever possible, to turn the subject to his own particular studies and pursuits; but, as mentioned by an exalted personage on an occasion referred to in the sequel, he never wearied his hearers. In a new or rare animal, his delight was almost childish; and the present writer has often reflected how intense would have been his pleasure had he been spared to see the first specimen brought to this country of that wonderful animal, the okapi of the Semliki Forest.

To his official subordinates Sir William was also readily accessible—possibly almost too much so; and he had always a word of praise for work faithfully carried out under his direction, even if, from a slight misunderstanding of his instructions, it had not been executed precisely on the lines he himself would have desired. He was never above lending a hand himself at manual work; and the writer well recollects an occasion at the museum where a large animal was, with some difficulty, being moved, and Sir William, although at the time manifestly unfit for severe physical effort, would insist upon aiding in the task.

As a host, Sir William Flower, ably seconded by Lady Flower, had few rivals and no superiors; and although he absolutely detested tobacco, such was his good-nature, that he would not deny his male friends the luxury of an after-dinner cigarette—the idea of ladies smoking would probably have been too much even for his good-nature and tolerance of other people’s little weaknesses.

This chapter may be fitly brought to a close by referring to the fact that it was largely owing to the advocacy of Sir William that a statue of his intimate friend Huxley was placed in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum, in company with those of Darwin and Owen, so that “Huxley and Owen, often divided in their lives, would come together after death in the most appropriate place and amidst the most appropriate surroundings.” In this Valhalla of men pre-eminent in British biological science of the nineteenth century, Flower’s own bust has found its home; but of this more anon.

In this connection it may be added that Sir William Flower wrote for the _Proceedings_ of the Royal Society the obituary notice of Sir Richard Owen, who had been his predecessor in his own two most important offices. Despite the fact that Flower had been instrumental in overthrowing at least one of Owen’s “pet theories,” this biographical notice is written in the kindest and most sympathetic spirit, giving full credit to the “immense labours and brilliant talents” of this truly remarkable man.

An earlier obituary notice from Flower’s pen which appeared in the same journal was devoted to a sketch of the life of George Rolleston, the brilliant Professor of Anatomy and Physiology of Oxford, whose comparatively early death in 1881 was one of the real losses to biological science.

Of a more varied and popular nature were Flower’s reminiscences of his friend Huxley, which appeared in the _North American Review_ for September 1895. A fourth biographical notice was the “eulogium” on Charles Darwin, delivered by Sir William at the centenary meeting of the Linnean Society, held on 24th May 1888, in which the speaker acknowledged the incomparable importance of Darwin’s work, and incidentally avowed his own acceptance of the doctrine of evolution. Compared to Darwin’s achievements, he observed, “most of the work which we others do is but irregular, guerilla warfare, attacks on isolated points, mere outpost skirmishing, while his was the indefatigable, patient, unintermittent toil, conducted in such a manner and on such a scale that it could scarcely fail to secure victory in the end.”