85 
undoubtedly possessed. He was a good classical scholar, finding 
recreation up to near the end of his life ‘in the study of the best 
Latin and Greek authors; he had a rare aor tikintanes with the 
best English literature in almost all its branches ; he read and 
spoke French fluently, and had a good acquaintance with German, 
While in England, he took a great interest in archeological studies, 
and made large oD ee ate of brass-rubbings and impressions of seals 
and coins. Some of these brass-rubbings and all his impressions 
of seals are now in tha “A Albany Museum. They are prepared with 
a patience and skill which could hardly be excelled. This habit of 
preparing specimens with his own hands in the most scrupulously 
careful manner clung to him through life, and the tens of thousands 
of botanical specimens which he distributed gratis to the leading 
herbaria of the world will testify to this. It made him, however, 
averse to employing any assistance for mechanical work except 
very late in life. Already in England he had begun to study 
Botany. He took up eepebially Phanerogams and “Mosses. In 
1860 his health began to give way, lung-troubles appeared, and 
in 1861 he left Huddersfield to take char rge of a_ projected 
* College” at Grahamstown. Aes his health was already 
restored during the sea-voyage, and he never again ha any serious 
illness until late in life. The promoters of the “ College” named 
Shaw College had no clear idea what they wanted and it was never 
more than a school; besides, as MacOwan put it, “ When it was 
projected wool was up, and when he came out wool was down. 
Little of the expected financial support was forthcoming, and he 
had a hard struggle to keep the school going. However, from an 
educational point of view, his efforts were crowned with success, 
Although a stern master, ‘his former pupils to this day speak of 
him in the most affectionate terms, and it cannot be a mere 
coincidence that many men who passed through his hands mn 
rahamstown, and later at Somerset Hast, have been mo 
successful in after life, and are noted as amongst the ablest sa 
most upright men in South Attica’ In Grahamstown he enjoyed 
the intimate one of Dr. W. G. Atherstone, Mr. H. Hutton 
and Mrs. F. W. Barber, all of whom took a keen interest in Botany. 
He got into touch with Dr. (now Sir Joseph) Hooker, the late 
Dr. Harvey, the late Dr. Sonder, the late Prof. Asa Gray and 
other eminent botanists, all of whom encouraged him in his efforts 
to explore the flora of Grahamstown and the surrounding country. 
e laid here the foutidations: of his herbarium, and by his own 
quantity of valuable m im a_ grateful 
compliment in the preface to the third volume of the “ F lora 
apensis.’ 
He left Grahamstown in 1869 to take up the post of science 
tutor at Gill College, Somerset East. his institution was 
expected to become a kind of University College for the Eastern 
Province of Cape Colony, but the time was not ripe for such an 
institution, besides circumstances over which he had no control and 
which we, looking back, can perceive clearly, made it from the first 
a hopeless failure. It too however, many years before his 
usiasm was checked, He presented his herbarium to the 
15747 B 
