300 MEMOIR OF 
with him at their meetings about the year 1809, 
and that he soon after became one of their most 
esteemed and useful members.” 
John Bentley of Staley Bridge, who published 
an account of new plants which he had found in 
the uncultivated parts of North America, was at 
this time one of their members. 
At the same period also, George Cayley, 
afterwards well known as one of our most enter- 
prising and intelligent naturalists, was an active 
member of the Manchester Society of Botanists, 
and on his return from his expedition to New 
South Wales in 1811, became so much attached 
to Hobson, that the president, John Dewhurst, 
complained of these friends having little time to 
spare for conversation with any body else. 
During Cayley’s appointment to superintend 
the Government Botanical establishment at St. 
Vincent’s, he was a regular correspondent of 
Hobson, and furnished him with many rare spe- 
cimens of tropical plants, and especially of ferns. 
John Mellor, of Royton, and Samuel Ogden, 
of Middleton, appear also to have been distin- 
