©bititarn* 



Sir James Wilson Agnew, K.C.M.G., M.D., M.E.C., 

 Senior Vice-President of the Royal Society of Tas- 

 mania. Died on cSth November, 1901, in the 87th year 

 of his age. — Born at Ballyclare, Ireland, on the 2nd 

 October, 1815, he studied for the medical profession 

 in London and Paris, and at Glas^^-ow, where he 

 graduated M.D., as his father and grandfather had 

 done before him, and came to Australia in 1839. 

 After a short stay in New South Wales and Victoria 

 (then known as Port Phillip), he accepted from 

 Sir John Franklin the offer of appointment as 

 medical officer to an important station at Tasman's 

 Peninsula, wliere he devoted the greater part of 

 his leisure time to the study of natural history. 

 Prior to his removal to Hobart for the more 

 extended practice of his profession, in which he sub- 

 sequently attained a position of acknowledged eminence, 

 he had assisted in founding the Tasmanian Societ}^, and 

 lie became an active member of the Royal Society, 

 into which the former Society merged in 1844. 

 Shortly after the retirement of Dr. Milligan, its 

 Secretary and Curator, in 1860, he undertook the 

 duties of Seci'etary as a labour of love, in order 

 that the whole of the limited amount available 

 out of income might be appropriated as salary for 

 the Curator of the Museum. From that time on- 

 wards, except during occasional periods of absence 

 from Tasmania, he continued to act as chief executive 

 officer of the Royal Society in the capacity of Honorary 

 Secretary for many years, and latterly in that of 

 Chairman of the Council ; and to the admirable manner 

 in which those self-imposed duties were discharo-ed. 



