548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SKETCH OF WILLIAM MATTIEU WILLIAMS. 



WHILE the characterization by Mr. Thomas Laurie of W. 

 Mattieii Williams as having been "the first who swept 

 aside the veil that had been hung up between scientific workers 

 and the toiling millions " can hardly be verified, it is an indisputa- 

 ble fact that he was eminently successful in presenting scientific 

 truths in a form acceptable to the common people and adapted to 

 awaken their interest ; and his presentations rarely failed to sug- 

 gest further thought on the subject to which they related. 



Mr. Williams was born in London, February 6, 1820, and died 

 in London, of cerebral apoplexy, November 28, 1892. He was 

 taught in boyhood, at three schools of the kind that then flour- 

 ished, a little arithmetic, grammar, geography, and Latin, but no 

 science. His experiences even thus early set his mind in the train 

 which led him to the adoption of those views on education which 

 he advocated and on which he acted later in life. When four- 

 teen years old he was apprenticed to Mr. Thomas, mathematical 

 and optical instrument maker at Lambeth, where he gained a 

 practical skill and scientific knowledge which he was able to turn 

 to good purpose in the several courses of scientific lectures which 

 formed part of the work of his mature life. Although he had to 

 work from seven o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night, 

 he continued to attend the night classes of the London Mechanics' 

 Institution, Southampton Buildings, now the Birkbeck Institu- 

 tion ; and during the whole term of his apprenticeship he attended 

 the biweekly lectures which were given by eminent men of the 

 time in their several specialties, and the classes in mathematics, 

 chemistry, natural philosophy, French, German, and phrenology, 

 and took part in the exercises and discussions of the literary soci- 

 eties. The programmes of those societies during the period of his 

 attendance upon them afford as among the subjects of papers con- 

 tributed by him the Relative Character of the French and Eng- 

 lish; Constantinople and the Turks; Dreaming, Phrenologically 

 Considered; the Expediencj^ of Railways becoming National 

 Property; the National Characteristics of the French; Direct 

 and Indirect Taxation; the Propriety of Discussing Political 

 Questions at Mechanics' Institutions ; and topics related to psy- 

 chology and phrenology. On coming of age he obtained posses- 

 sion by inheritance of a small sum of money, by the aid of which 

 he studied chemistry at the University of Edinburgh and made a 

 pedestrian tour of two years in Europe. He spent much of the 

 time in Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Turkey ; and, becoming 

 acquainted with the Turk in the last country, found him a better 

 man than he was generally regarded as being, and a person of 



