LIFE OF JOSHUA ALDER. 



JOSHUA ALDEK was born at Easter Eve, 1792, in Dean Street, 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where liis father was in business as a 

 provision merchant. At an early age he was sent to a school 

 which was kept by two ladies in that town; and later was 

 educated under his relative, the Eev. Joseph Simpson, at 

 Tanfield School, where he was taught the rudiments of classics 

 and mathematics. 



" He appears to have been a lad of observation, vivacity, 

 and humour. He was fond of sketching portraits and cari- 

 catures on the kitchen walls with a burnt stick, and of holding- 

 boyish dramatic performances with puppets, which he manu- 

 factured chiefly himself, and for which he pronounced the 

 speeches, and thus, amid family gatherings of old and young, 

 many a pleasant and joyous evening was spent. In the 

 prosecution of these juvenile amusements we may observe the 

 early evidence of his genial disposition, and the germs of 

 those powers of observation and delineation which gradually 

 grew up and developed themselves into talents of no mean 

 order." * 



At the age of fifteen Joshua Alder finally left school ; and 

 within a year his father died (November, 1808) and he at 

 once commenced to assist his widowed mother in the business. 

 [t would not have been in accordance with his character 

 if he had not done everything that he should have done in 

 the matter of this business in the years which followed. But 

 truly for business and money-making he had little taste : and 

 in 1840, when 48 years of age, he retired into private life, 

 and from that day living in quiet happiness with his 

 devotedly attached sister, Miss Alder, he gave his time 

 wholly to his favourite studies in Zoology. 



*From "Notice of the Life of the late Joshua Alder, Esq., by D. 

 Embleton, M. D." (' Nat. Hist. Trans. Northumberland and Durham,' Vol. I, 

 1867, p. 324 ) I am indebted to this memoir for information respecting Mr. 

 Alder's early life ; and passages which follow within inverted commas are 

 from Dr. Embleton. 



