1 42 Royal Astronomical Society : — Deceased Members : 



pleasure, that the Council propose that he be elected an honorary 

 member, in the place of his late predecessor*. 



" 'riie other losses that the Council have to deplore, are those of 

 Mr. Davies Gilbert, Professor Rigaud, and Mr. Epps. 



" ]Mr. Davies Gilbert was born on the 6th of March, 1767, in the 

 parish of St. Erth, in the west of Cornwall. His father was the 

 Rev. Edward Giddy, his mother Catherine Davies, a descendant of 

 William Noye, attorney -general in the reign of Charles the First. 

 The subject of this memoir was reared wuth great care and attention 

 as a child of promise but not of robust health. His early education 

 was conducted at home by his father, who was well qualified for the 

 task as a scholar, and as a man of acknowledged ability and at- 

 tainments ; but his pupil's taste soon led him to prefer the study of 

 the severer sciences to the elegancies of classical literature ; and 

 these studies were pursued with an ardour not to be repressed. As 

 he grew up it was thought expedient to place him in the grammar- 

 school of Penzance (of which the Rev. James Parkin was then the 

 master) ; and for that purpose, his parents removed for about 

 eighteen months to that town. In the year 1782 they removed to 

 Bristol, where their son's studies were assisted, for a time, by Mr. 

 Benjamin Donne. In the year 1786 he was matriculated at Oxford. 

 after having been entered as a gentleman-commoner of Pembroke 

 College. He had already made himself master of considerable 

 mathematical and physical knowledge, and had acquired the greater 

 portion of it by almost unassisted application. His efforts had been 

 guided and aided, indeed, by a very friendly intercourse with the 

 Rev. Malachy Hitchins, vicar of St. Hilary (whose connexion with 

 the late Dr. Maskelyne and the ' Nautical Almanac ' is well known), 

 from whom, as he has himself recorded, he obtained, whenever it 

 was asked, information ' in those sciences which aflforded him unin- 

 terrupted entertainment and delight throughout the whole conti- 

 nuance of a protracted life.' 



" During his residence at Oxford, he was a regular attendant at 

 the lectures on anatomy and mineralogy of Dr. Thomson, at Christ 

 Church. He likewise attended with assiduity the lectures on che- 

 mistry and botany of Drs. Beddoes and Sibthorp, and formed with 

 them alliances of reciprocal friendship, which terminated only with 

 their lives. His society was, in fact, courted by his seniors, and 

 included a long list of the most eminent among the professors and 

 other distinguished men of the University. 



" He took the honorary degree of M.A., and continued to reside 

 much in his college, until, in 1793, he returned to Cornwall to 

 serve the office of sheriff, where his time was divided between the 

 cultivation of science and literature, and the duties of a magistrate 

 in a populous and busy county. 



" Soon after this, we find him brought into closer contact with 

 the world, and enabled to display, upon the wider stage of the me- 



* A resolution to this effect was proposed at the meeting, and unani- 

 mously carried. 



