XI 1 



By the death of Sir JOSEPH PRESTWICH British geological science 

 loses one of its oldest, as well as one of its most distinguished 

 votaries. Descended from an old Lancashire family (in which, for 

 some cause or other, a baronetcy has lain dormant for some genera- 

 tions), he was born at Pensbury, Clapham, on March 12, 1812.* 

 After some preliminary schooling he was sent to Paris, where he 

 remained for two years in a school attached to the College Bourbon. 

 He was then transferred to Dr. Yalpy's, at Reading, and finally 

 entered University College, London, soon after its establishment. 

 He there worked diligently in the chemical and natural philosophy 

 classes under Dr. Turner and Dr. Lardner, availing himself also of 

 the geological and mineralogical collections in the British Museum. 



While still at College he started a Society among his fellow 

 students, each member of which had in his turn to deliver a lecture 

 on chemistry or some branch of natural philosophy. This " Zetetical 

 Society" had rooms of its own, and a small laboratory, in Surrey 

 Street, Strand. It consisted of about fourteen members ; but its 

 existence was of limited duration. Mr. Prestwich himself was called 

 away from it to join the business of his father, who was a well-known 

 wine merchant in Mark Lane ; and he remained closely connected 

 with the house and business for nearly forty years. Happily, his 

 commercial avocations to some degree aided, instead of restricting, his 

 pursuit of geological studies. He had to make frequent visits to 

 France and Belgium, in both of which countries he formed lasting 

 friendships with the leading geologists and palaeontologists of the 

 day; and he made himself personally familiar with the actual strata 

 and fossils which they had described. Not only so, but his business 

 among the country connexions of the firm carried him to nearly 

 every part of the United Kingdom, and the hours unclaimed by his 

 engagements were enthusiastically devoted to the study of the local 

 geology of the districts he visited. His comprehensive eye enabled 

 him rapidly to appreciate and to grasp the leading features, topo- 

 graphical and geological, of most of the areas which in those days 

 possessed an exceptional geological interest ; and those who in later 

 years had the good fortune to accompany him to such spots were sur- 

 prised to find how retentive was his memory and how intimate was 

 his acquaintance with every pit, quarry, and rock-section that in any 

 way illustrated the geological problem under consideration. 



His first published papers dealt with the fossil-bearing deposits of 

 the neighbourhood of Gramrie, Banffshire particularly with the strata 

 containing ichthyolites, and with the shell-bearing layers of the Till 

 and the international character of his geological work was exhibited 



* For much that is here said I am indebted to a memoir by Dr. Henry Wood- 

 ward, F.R.S., published in the ' Geological Magazine,' 1893, p. 242. I have also to 

 thank Professor Lapworth for kind assistance. 



