258 PETER SPENCE 



to its study, and were offered opportunities 

 for experiment and research, but Spence had 

 no such advantages. It is a mystery to us 

 how he was attracted to study works on 

 chemistry after he had spent his days in the 

 dull monotony of the shop. When work was 

 done, or before the shutters were taken down 

 in the morning, the grocer's apprentice might 

 be seen absorbed in his studies and his books, 

 week after week and month after month; 

 extemporising some elementary experiments 

 with a very rough and crude apparatus; but 

 these days were the seed time of his life; 

 these voluntary studies, when, in pursuit of 

 knowledge, he denied himself the ordinary 

 recreations of his companions, fitted him to 

 fill a far wider and more influential sphere 

 than he could otherwise have done. When 

 he was out of his apprenticeship, he and an 

 uncle commenced business together, as 

 grocers, under the name of Sime and Spence. 

 In this establishment there was also for a time 

 a younger brother of Spence, who afterwards 

 became superintendent engineer of H.M. 

 Dockyard, Portsmouth, and who, on being 

 strongly tempted to accept a much better 

 position in the Russian Steam Naval Depart- 

 ment, declined to leave the old flag. This 



