A YORKSHIRE NATURALIST 7 



I was myself born in Huntriss Row, on Novem- 

 ber 24th, 1816. At this time Bean's Subscription 

 Gardens no longer existed, large plots having been 

 cut off for building purposes. My father had ex- 

 tended his scientific explorations, so as to include 

 in his collection a large number of fossils, minerals, 

 shells, crustaceans, and insects ; in consequence a 

 wing was added to the back of the house, with the 

 object of supplying a spacious room for a museum, 

 wherein to preserve the rapidly increasing store of 

 natural objects. A small room next to this museum 

 witnessed my birth. My only sister Ellen, born in 

 1813, was then living. At the age of about three years 

 I was sent to my first school. At that time one of 

 the older relics of the town, known as St. Thomas' 

 Hospital, was in existence. It was a small pile of 

 low, white, thatched cottages. In one of these an 

 aged woman and her daughter kept a dame's school,* 



* Dr. Williamson has often described his reading lessons ; 

 one especially interested him. On a bright spring morn- 

 ing, when the sun streamed through the cottage window 

 and almost extinguished a smouldering fire, the dame, an 

 old lady wearing a frilled cap, sat in an armchair knitting; 

 the student, an eager, white-faced lad, with scarlet frock 

 and white pinafore, stood at her knee, holding a folio some 

 six inches square, called a battledore, on the inside of 

 which the alphabet was printed ; capital letters on one 

 side, small ones on the other. The dame, almost asleep, 

 but mechanically knitting, droned " Large * A,' Willie," and 

 Willie, with eyes anywhere except on the letter, repeated. 

 " Small * A,' Willie," droned the sleepy voice. Willie again 



