85 



have been elected; the losses have been, resignation 1, 

 defaulter 1, deaths 7. 



The deceased members are Mr. Samuel Robinson, Dr. R. 

 Angus Smith, F.R.S., Rev. W. Gaskell, M.A., Mr. Bartholomew 

 Stretton, Mr. W. Rayner Wood, Professor Morrison Watson, 

 and Sir Thomas Bazley, Bart. 



Mr. Samuel Robinson who died on the 8th day of Decem- 

 ber, 1884, at his residence Black Brook Cottage, Wilmslow, in 

 his 91st year, had been a member of the Society since the 

 year 1822. The son of a gentleman who has been described 

 as " one of the local literati and leaders of society and a 

 prominent man in all that concerned the prosperity of the 

 town and the interests of culture and progress," he received 

 at Manchester College (at that time stationed at York, which 

 was then the resort of many of those whom a now happily 

 obsolete prejudice excluded from the National Universities), 

 a fair University training which, if that of a small provincial 

 College, was yet in advance of the prevailing English scholar 

 ship of the day. 



The refinement of letters Mr. Robinson never lost. 

 Through a long life — 40 years — spent in cotton manufac- 

 turing in Manchester and Dukinfield, he never fsiiled in warm 

 personal interest, in the moral and educational welfare of 

 his workpeople and neighbours. The founder of the Dukin- 

 field Library, he frequently lectured there and W9,s for many 

 years a daily visitor at the British School and a diligent 

 teacher in the old Chapel School. 



On his retirement in 1860 he withdrew to Wilmslow and 

 devoted himself to the prosecution of the literary pursuits 

 which had been for many years the resource of hardly earned 

 leisure. He could not lay aside, nor ever wished to do so, 

 his earnest and singularly practical work for improving the 

 conditions of life of old and young around. As a school 

 manager, as a poor law guardian, as an active trustee, and 



