the late Mr. Henry. 15 



opposition was made to the latter, by a public meeting of the 

 inhabitants of Manchester, on the ground that the whole process 

 had been successfully carried into effect by Mr. Watt, Mr. 

 Henry, and Mr. Cooper*. 



Having satisfied himself of the practicability and advantages 

 of the new method of bleaching, by carrying it on upon a scale 

 of sufficient extent, Mr. Henry prepared to embark in a much 

 larger establishment for the purpose. The connexion, however, 

 which he entered into with this view, having disappointed his 

 just expectations, and the further prosecution of it being incon- 

 sistent with his professional employments, he abandoned the 

 project, and contented himself with imparting the knowledge he 

 had gained to several persons, who were already extensively 

 engaged in the practice of bleaching, by the then established 

 methods, 



Mr. Henry had now reached a period of life, when the vigour 

 of the bodily powers, and the activity of the mind, begin, in 

 most persons, to manifest a sensible decay. From this time, 

 however, though he did not embark in new experimental inqui- 

 ries, yet he continued for many years to feel a warm interest in 

 the advancement of science, and to maintain an occasional cor- 

 respondence with persons highly eminent for their rank as phi- 

 losophers, both in this and other countries f . His medical oc- 

 cupations had greatly increased, and, for a further interval of 

 fifteen or twenty years, he had a share of professional employ- 

 ment, which falls to the lot of very few. This, and the super- 



* The reader, who is interested in the history of the introduction of 

 chlorine and its compounds into use in bleaching, is referred to a note in 

 Dr. Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Art. Bleaching ; and to Dr. 

 Thomson's Annals of Philosophy, Vols. 6 and 7. 



f A considerable collection of letters to Mr. Henry from persons of this 

 description has been preserved ; but the subjects of them have, for the 

 most part, been long ago brought before the public by their rcsj)ective 

 writers. The letters are chiefly valuable to the family of the deceased, 

 as unequivocal proofs of the respect and esteem felt towards him, by those 

 who were best qualified to judge of his merits. Many of them are from 

 learned foreigners, with whom he had enjoyed ojiportunities of personal 

 intercourse during their visits to Manchester. 



