i894. OBITUARY. 155 



ROBERT BENTLEY. 

 Born 1821. Died December 24, 1893. 



'T^HE late Professor Bentley was born at Hitchin, in 1821. After 

 leaving school he was apprenticed to William Maddock, a 

 chemist at Tunbridge Wells, and, having served his term, became 

 an assistant at the establishment of John Bell & Co., in Oxford Street. 

 He joined the School of Pharmacy in Bloomsbury Square at its 

 foundation, and subsequently entered as a medical student at King's 

 College, becoming, in due course, a member of the College of 

 Surgeons. He commenced the study of botany during his apprentice- 

 ship, and when at Bloomsbury attended Dr. A. T. Thompson's 

 lectures, and gained the first botanical prize awarded by the institu- 

 tion. His connection with the Pharmaceutical Society was almost 

 lifelong, and it was to members and associates of the Society that he 

 was best known. In 1887 he resigned the chair of Botany, and Vv^as 

 shortly after elected Emeritus Professor. He was also for some time 

 Professor of Botany and Dean of the Medical School at King's 

 College, and Professor of Botany at the London Institution. He was 

 twice President of the Pharmaceutical Conference, at Nottingham in 

 1866, and in the following year at Dundee, and for many years acted 

 as chairman to the Garden Committee of the Royal Botanic Society, 

 Regent's Park, where he annually gave a course of botanical lectures. 

 His most important scientific work was that on " Medicinal Plants," 

 which he shared with Mr. Henry Trimen, a most valuable book of 

 deservedly wide reputation. Bentley also produced a small text-book 

 on Botany, which passed through several editions, and was the author 

 of numerous papers, chiefiy of botanical interest, in the Pharma- 

 ceutical Society's Journal, the editorship of which he shared for about 

 ten years. He was buried on December 30 at Kensal Green. 



We are indebted for several of our facts to an obituary notice by 

 Mr. O. Corder in the Pharmacetitical Journal of January 6. 



'^PHE deaths are also announced of Sir Samuel Baker, the eminent 

 1 African explorer; of Pierre Van Beneden, the veteran 

 zoologist, of Louvain ; of Dr. J. Boehm, the botanist, of Vienna, at 

 the age of 62; of Baron Karl von Kuster, the botanist; and of 

 Major John Plant, late of the Salford Museum. We hope to give 

 some account of the work of Sir Samuel Baker and other recently- 

 deceased African explorers next month. 



ALONG obituary notice of the late Hendrik Rink, by Dr. Robert 

 Brown, appears in the January number of the Geographical 

 Journal. 



