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RETIRING ADDRESS 



[By the Puesidext, Rev. Prebendary Elliot.] 



Gentlemen, I shall best, I am sure, consult your feelings and my own, if, 

 as, on this occasion of the expiry of my second year of office as your President, I 

 offer you tlie customary address, I place in the forefront of my remarks a respect- 

 ful and regretful mention of three eminent members of the Woolhope Club, who 

 have been called away from us by death in the year that has elapsed since our last 

 annual meeting here. I recall first the name of the Rev. Prebendary Crouch, the 

 late Rector of PembriJge. Another and a very important link of the chain that 

 binds us to the past has been broken by his death, for the record of Mr. Crouch's 

 services to the Club extends back to the very earliest years of its existence. 

 Thi-ee times, in the years 1855, 1859, and 1864, he filled the presidential chair. He 

 was a man of verj' large and varied scientific attainment, the strong powers of 

 whose highly-educated mind wei-e stimulated by an ardent love of nature, and 

 both in the field of botanical and of geological research he was distinguished. He 

 was one of the now fast dwindling baud who made the naine of the Woolhope 

 Club a name of power ; and he leaves to it the grateful memory of his labours, 

 and the encouragement of his example. Still more recently we have had to 

 deplore the loss of Mr. Theophilus Lane. To the members of to-day a more 

 perceptible blank has been caused by his removal than has perhaps been the case 

 in the instance of Mr. Crouch, whose increasing age and physical inability to 

 attend our meetings had rendered him for several years a less familiar figure 

 amongst us. We cannot easily forget the valuable and important work which for 

 the space of nine years, from 1878 until his retirement from ill-health in 1887, Mr. 

 Line so ungrudgingly performed as our secretary. A worthy successor in the 

 former year to our much -esteemed and lamented friend, Mr. Thompson, it was 

 with great regret that we had reluctantly to acquiesce in the resignation of his 

 office which his failing health compelled two years ago. It was with every 

 sentiment of gratituJe that we then admitted him to our honorary membership. 

 It is with sorrow we record the final severance of our connection now. Mr. 

 George Cocking, too, of Ludlow, who died within the last few mouths, was a very 

 old member of our society. He was elected in the year 1856, and I see 

 in the list of 1873 that he is marked as having contributed papers to the 

 Transactions, though I cannot find his name in Dr. Havergal's index. 

 He was an accomplished geologist, and did much special work of an excel- 

 lent kind in the interesting neighbourhood of the town where he lived. 

 I recall the names of these departed worthies, gentlemen, in no mere spirit of 

 platitude, or simply to evoke the evanescent tribute of a passing kindly remem- 

 brance, but in the serious conviction that if the Woolhope Club is to remain, as I 

 sincerely trust it may, in the future what it has been in the past, it must be that 

 we individually strive to emulate the lo\ ing devotion which, in their several 



