198 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



Since this address was penned there has oecurred the 

 death of another officer whose loss will be long and 

 severely felt : William Charles Lucy, lately our President, 

 one of our oldest and ablest members, has passed away, 

 full of years, honoured and respected by everyone. It is 

 most desirable that some record of his life should appear 

 in our Proceedings. No one is better able to write this 

 record than his old friend, John Bellows. To him I tele- 

 graphed a request to render the Club this service. He 

 most kindly and promptly responded with the following 

 letter : 



" It will be the desire of every member of the Cottes- 

 " wold Club that some expression should be given to the 

 " sorrow we all feel at the loss of our most valued mcm- 

 " ber, and late President, William Charles Lucy. 



" All through the most vigorous period of our history 

 " as a society, his name has been associated with it as the 

 " most active of its workers, not only from the material 

 "he has left in permanent record in our Proceedings, but 

 " from the aid he has given us, verbally, in our summer 

 " excursions, and in our winter meetings, as well as by his 

 " individual study at other times, of areas both at home 

 " and abroad, which offered features of geological interest. 



" For a large part of his life William Lucy held a lead- 

 " ing position as a merchant of Gloucester : a position 

 " won by a unison of ability and uprightness such as is 

 " not very common, even where these qualities are separ- 

 " ately present. In using the word 'ability,' I do not mean 

 " that he was a brilliant, or a remarkably original man. He 

 " was not : but he possessed an insight into the broad 

 " bearings of whatever he had to decide upon, and a pru- 

 " dence that made his judgment valued, and sought after. 

 " This led to his being weighted with an amount of work 

 " under which a less patient and methodical man would 

 " have failed hopelessly. Not only as a merchant carrying 



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