HIS RESIGNATION 225 



ance did not show it, was already beginning to feel 

 the effects of strenuous work and responsibility. In 

 1 897 he notes in his skeleton diary, ' ' I began the 

 year in my serious illness, not having been out of 

 the house since December 10." Lady Flower has 

 described in the final chapter the way in which he 

 maintained his interest in his work and administra- 

 tive duties under the heavy disadvantage of rapidly 

 failing health. But on June n, 1898, his resigna- 

 tion of the office of Director of the Natural History 

 Museum was received by the Trustees, to date from 

 the 3Oth September following. The Trustees 

 received this communication with the greatest 

 regret. The following letter was directed to be 

 sent to Sir William, and signed by the chairman of 

 the meeting, Viscount Dillon. 



DEAR SIR WILLIAM FLOWER With profound regret the 

 Trustees accept the resignation of the Directorship of the Natural 

 History Museum, which, owing to failure of health, you have 

 unhappily been compelled to submit to them. They had hoped 

 that the remaining term of years which you might have spent in 

 their service would have enabled you to perfect the arrangement 

 of the collections so admirably planned and so systematically 

 developed by you during your fourteen years of office, and they 

 cannot but regard your retirement at this moment as a real 

 misfortune to the Museum. They wish to record their high 

 appreciation of your services. The rare combination of wide 

 scientific knowledge with marked administrative ability and 

 sympathetic appreciation of the requirements of the uninstructed 

 public has carried you through a most difficult task. Under 

 your hands the Natural History collections of the British Museum 

 have fallen into the lines of an orderly and instructive arrange- 

 ment, which no one, whether man of science or ordinary visitor, 



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