1852.] Linnean Society. .181 



in Berkshire, where his father was for a very long period an eminent 

 Minister of the Baptist persuasion, and author of numerous puhlica- 

 tions of a mixed poUtical and religious character. Of Mr. Bicheno's 

 own early destination we have little precise information, but the 

 nature of his studies is clearly ascertained by his publications, the 

 more important of which treat of the Philosophy of Legislation on 

 the two great questions of Poor Laws and the Punishment of Crime. 

 The titles of these works are as follows : * An Enquiry into the 

 Nature of Benevolence, chiefly with a view to elucidate the Prin- 

 ciples of the Poor Laws,' 8vo, Lond. 1817, of which a nevv^ and en- 

 larged edition, with the title slightly varied, was published in 1824 ; 

 and ' Observations on the Philosophy of Criminal Jurisprudence,' 

 8vo, Lond. 1 819. In 1821 he married a lady of Newbury of the 

 name of Lloyd, but had the misfortune to lose her in childbed, a 

 year after their marriage. He had previously quitted Newbury and 

 entered himself at the Middle Temple, where he was called to the Bar 

 in 1822, and for some years afterwards went the Oxford Circuit. In 

 1824, on the appointment of Mr. MacLeay to be Colonial Secretary of 

 New South Wales, Mr. Bicheno was elected to supply his place as Se- 

 cretary of this Society, of which he had become a Fellow in 1812, and 

 to which his taste for natural science had long closely attached him. 

 For some years afterwards he resided at Notting Hill, having ceased 

 to practise at the Bar, but on the death of his father in 1831 at the age 

 of SO, he determined to quit London, and having resigned the Secre- 

 taryship in 1832, he removed toTymaen, near Pyle in Glamorganshire, 

 in the neighbourhood of some iron-works, in which he had become 

 a partner. Here he resided for several years, acting as a Magistrate 

 for the county, and as the Official Chairman of the Board of Guar- 

 dians at Bridgend. The iron-works, in which the bulk of his for- 

 tune was invested, proving an unfortunate speculation, it became 

 necessary for him to seek elsewhere some profitable employment. 

 In the autumn of 1829 he had made a tour of Ireland in company 

 with a legal friend, and had published the result of his observations 

 in a volume entitled ' Ireland and its QEconomy,' 8vo, Lond. 1830. 

 This work, in which he recurred to his earlier studies, and examined 

 among other social questions the applicability of Poor Laws to Ireland, 

 assisted in recommending him to the Marquis of Lansdowne, through 

 whose means he was, in 1836, appointed one of the Commissioners 

 for inquiring into the expediency of introducing the Poor Laws into 

 that Kingdom, in which capacity he was the author of an elaborate 

 separate Report founded on the evidence that had been collected 

 on the subject. In 1842 he was appointed by Lord Stanley Colonial 



