on the Council in the Year 1891-92. He was President of Section D,, 

 at the Leeds meeting of the British Association (1890), and was for- 

 many years President of the Manchester Microscopical Society. He 

 was D.Sc. of London University (1877) and M.D. of Cambridge 



(1882). 



A. S. 



CHARLES ROMLEY ALDER WRIGHT, who became a Fellow of the- 

 Royal Society in 1881, was born at Sonthend, in Essex, in 1844. 

 His father, Romley Wright, a civil engineer, was at one time em- 

 ployed on the Ordnance Survey of this country, and in the course of 

 his work made some observations on the geology of the county of 

 Salop, which were published in the ' Transactions of the Geological 

 Society ' for 1837. During the son's boyhood his parents removed 

 to Manchester, and in due time Charles Wright was entered at 

 Owens College to be educated for the profession of his father. 

 At that period the early years of the 60 's the college was housed 

 in Quay Street, in the dingy, old-fashioned, red-brick building 

 which had served Richard Cobden as a residence. In the rear of the 

 building there had been erected a well-equipped chemical laboratory 

 indeed, as things went at that time, it was held to be a very paragon 

 among such places and here young Wright, under the stimulating 

 guidance of Roscoe and Schorlemmer, found ample opportunity to 

 develop the liking for experimental chemistry which had manifested 

 itself during his home life. Quick-witted, bright and intelligent^ 

 with a capacity for boyish fun, and a fertility of resource in the 

 exercise of it, which excited the admiration and at times, it must be 

 added, the amazement of his less-gifted fellows, Wright appeared to 

 overtake his college work with an ease and celerity that seemed to- 

 them little short of marvellous. Thanks, however, to his father's 

 training, he had been early schooled into the habit of doing with all 

 his might whatsoever his hand found to do, and this capacity for work 

 never left him. His career at Owens was exceptionally brilliant ; 

 prize after prize, not only in chemistry, but also in physics, which he 

 studied under Clifton, in mathematics, which he had from Sandeman, 

 and in classics, which he learnt from Greenwood, fell, session after 

 session, to his share. His course in connexion with his graduation 

 work at the University of London was hardly less distinguished. 

 On matriculating, in 1863, he gained the highest place and prize in 

 chemistry ; and at the intermediate examination in the following 

 year he was awarded the Exhibitions both in chemistry and natural 

 philosophy, and was made an Associate of Owens College. 



Wright's first essay in experimental investigation was done under 

 Roscoe's direction. It consisted of an enquiry into the relative sensi- 

 tiveness of photographic paper salted with different haloids and 



