229 



Early Memories of the Q.M.C. 

 By M. C. Cooke, M.A., LL.D. 



{Read June \Uli, 1899.) 



The President and Committee and others have pleaded so 

 earnestly with me to undertake, what 1 may call the domestic 

 History of the Q.M.C, that at length I have determined to make 

 an effort at satisfying their demands, although, I am bound to 

 confess, with some reluctance, because I was so intimately asso- 

 ciated with the conception and birth of the Club, that I am 

 liable to a strong imputation of egotism in narrating the true, 

 unvarnished tale. Allow me at the outset to repudiate any desire 

 for self-glorification, and to affirm that I had much rather this 

 duty had fallen upon some one of my coadjutors, if so many of 

 them had not departed from the scene of their labours, and left 

 me almost alone. 



It might seem that, in some instances, I have introduced rather 

 irrelevant matter; but I have judged it better to reproduce all 

 the circumstances, in order to convey a clear understanding 

 of all the subsidiary influences which combined to render the 

 establishment of the Club one of the successes of the time. 



Older members will recollect that in 1861, and in succeeding 

 years, Mr. Robert Hardwicke was an earnest and successful 

 publisher of Natural History books at his house in Piccadilly, 

 where he was publishing the " Popular Science Review," with the 

 help of Mr. Thomas Ketteringham as his manager. Later on 

 he conceived and carried out the publication of the third edition 

 of Sowerby's " English Botany," with Dr. Boswell Syme as Editor 

 and Mrs. Edwin Lankester as responsible for the popular notes. 

 Now, Dr. Edwin Lankester and his wife were at that time per- 

 sonal friends of Mr. Hardwicke, and, as such, were rt least well 

 known to myself, who made an almost daily visit to the little 

 shop in Piccadilly. As contributor to the pages of the " Popular 

 Science Be^dew/' and as a writer of popular books on Natural 



