1/8 Animal Report of the Council. 



Dr. William Charles Henry was at the time of his 

 death the oldest member of the Society, having been elected 

 on October 31st, 1828. He was the representative of a family 

 connected with it for three generations, his grandfather, Mr. 

 Thomas Henry, F.R.S., a native of Wrexham, who settled 

 in Manchester as an apothecary, and subsequently achieved 

 distinction as a chemist, besides laying the foundations of 

 the wealth of his descendants, having been one of its 

 founders, and, with Dr. Barnes, one of its first secretaries. 

 The Society possesses a portrait of him. His son, William 

 Henry, M.D., F.R.S., also for many years a member of the 

 Society and an eminent chemist, whose bust, by Chantrey, 

 is also in the possession of the Society, married Mary 

 Bayley, aunt of Mr. T. B. Potter, M.P., and his son, known 

 during his residence in Manchester as Dr. Charles Henry, 

 was born in Manchester on March 31st, 1804. His early 

 education was received at various schools and under 

 various teachers, including the Rev. William Johns, Dr. 

 Dalton, and the Rev. J.J. Taylor. In November, 1824, he 

 matriculated at Edinburgh University, and graduated M.D. 

 in 1827. He at one time contemplated a residence at Cam- 

 bridge, but, though he was admitted to Caius College, he 

 did not remain there long. During the winter of 1827-8 

 Dr. Henry was at Paris, walking hospitals and attending 

 the lectures at the Sorbonne. On his return to England he 

 was elected physician to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, 

 a post he held from 1828 until May, 1835, when he resigned 

 in order to continue his studies in the chemical laboratories 

 on the Continent. He spent a year at Berlin, working at 

 mineral analysis with Henry Rose, and a short time at 

 Giessen under Liebig. He published papers on " The 

 Physiology of the Nervous System," 1833 ; "A Critical and 

 Experimental Inquiry into the Relations subsisting between 

 Nerves and Muscles," 1831; "Remarks on the Atomic 

 Constitution of Elastic Fluids," 1834; "Experiments on 



