120 TRAXSACTIOXS OF THE [Sess. lxxxvi 



ciation of London in 1875-76 ; president of the Biological 

 Section of the British Association in 1886 ; Ph.D. of Upsala 

 University, conferred at the bicentenary celebration of the 

 birth of Linnaeus in 1907. 



As administrator in the British Museum, the work of 

 William Carruthers is perhaps less widel}" known, but none 

 the less important. He joined that institution in 1859, as 

 assistant when J. J. Bennett assumed the Keepership, vacant 

 by the death of Kobert Brown. The staff was Mr. Bennett 

 and himself, and the department for botany was a small, 

 crowded galler}^ in the Bloomsbur}^ building. It was 

 under these conditions that Carruthers did his research 

 for the next ten years. His appointment as Keeper in 

 1871 brought him into a stormy period. A Royal Com- 

 mission was then reviewing the position of scientific 

 instruction in Britain, and botany at the British Museum 

 came under severe criticism. The attack came from two 

 sides ; from Kew, which claimed a monopoly of collections, 

 museums, and libraries, and from the teaching colleges of 

 London. The result was that the British Museum depart- 

 ment remained and the Keeper proceeded to develop its 

 activities. Botany, with Zoology and Geology, was trans- 

 ferred in 1881 to the new Natural History Museum in 

 Cromwell Road, and enlarged accommodation meant exten- 

 sion and arrangement of the exhibits. A library was also 

 established, and as recorded later by one of his colleagues : 

 " Mr. Carruthers' knowledge and appreciation of botanical 

 literature was exercised to such admirable effect that it 

 may be doubted whether a finer botanical library exists." 

 Recognising the importance of cryptogamic botany, Mr. 

 Carruthers laid the foundation of the present collections 

 with the assistance of Henry Trimen and George Murray. 

 A further encouragement was the publication of Crombie's 

 " Enumeration of British Lichens," and Lister's " Mono- 

 graph of Mycetozoa." When Mr. Carruthers retired in 

 1895 his staff consisted of five assistants in place of one 

 in 1859. 



Agricultural botany was another development, and Mr. 

 Carruthers has left the history of this in the Journal of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society (vol. Ixx, 1909). Fifty 

 years ago there was no organisation whereby farmers 



