June, 1 919. The Irish Naturalist. 73 



THE REV. CHARLES WILLIAM BENSON, 



M.A., LL.D. 



It may be long before Irish naturalists again number in 

 their ranks so widely known a personality as Charles William 

 Benson, who, to the sorrow of innumerable friends in every 

 walk of life, passed from amongst us, in his eighty-third 

 year, on the 6th of February last. He was not a biologist 

 in the sternly scientific sense of that exacting word ; but 

 he belonged to a still scarcer type, and one not less valuable, 

 it may safely be said, to the cause of scientific progress. 



The eldest son of John Benson, M.D., of Castlecomer, 

 and of Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Fitzgerald, R.N., of 

 Waterford, Benson was born in his father's county Kilkenny 

 home on the 12th of July, 1836, and spent the years of 

 his boyhood chieflv in the vicinity of Waterford, where 

 he was sent to school, and where the love of nature, and 

 particularly of birds, took strong and lasting possession 

 of his young heart. He has left us in the preface to his 

 book on Irish Song-birds some pleasing reminiscences of 

 those early days — of the eagerness with which he crept 

 through the Kilbarry bogs " to discover the possessor of 

 the reed-like song " of the Sedge- Warbler, and of the 

 delight which so filled his mind, when a book on birds was 

 placed in his hands, that he was almost too agitated to 

 be able to read it. That some older friends encouraged 

 his taste is plain from the same narrative, but the boy's 

 own nature was undoubtedly the main source, and it may 

 be questioned whether any amount of discouragement 

 would have killed his innate love of birds. 



Benson's early years were not, however, years of much 

 leisure, and his studies were necessarily concentrated on 

 subjects less attractive than bird-life during his school and 

 college days, and still more so at the beginning of the period 

 that immediately followed them. He took his B.A. degree 

 at Dublin University in the spring of 1859, ^^^ i^ ^^^ same 

 year, with an enterprise truly remarkable, he started 

 Rathmines School — built by himself, as he was fond of 



