Henry Alleyne Nicholson. 



HENRY ALLEYNE NICHOLSON. 1844-1899. 



HENRY ALLEYNE NICHOLSON was born at Penrith in Cumberland 011 

 the llth of September, 1844. His father, Dr. John Nicholson, was a 

 Biblical and Oriental scholar of distinction. Nicholson was sent to 

 Appleby Gramniar School, and subsequently to the University of 

 Gottingen, where it was his intention to study philology, though he 

 soon abandoned this in favour of the Natural Sciences, and worked 

 under the eminent zoologist, Keferstein. From Gottingen he passed 

 to the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine from 1862 

 to 1867, graduating as Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery in 

 the latter year. He had already (in 1866) become a Bachelor of 

 Science, and in the following year obtained his Doctor's degree in 

 science. Shortly after this he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine 

 at Edinburgh and that of Doctor of Philosophy at Gottingen. 



In the year 1866 he was elected Baxter Scholar in the Natural 

 Sciences at Edinburgh University, and in the following year sent in a 

 thesis for graduation as Bachelor of Medicine. This was his well- 

 known ' Essay on the Geology of Cumberland and Westmorland,' for 

 which he was awarded a University Gold Medal ; the essay was soon 

 afterwards published, and dedicated to "his friend and teacher" Robert 

 Harkness, then Professor of Geology in Queen's College, Cork. 



In 1869, when he proceeded to the degree of Doctor of Medicine, 

 Nicholson was awarded the Ettles Medical Scholarship, which is given 

 annually to the most distinguished medical graduate of the year. In 

 the same year he was appointed to a Lectureship in Natural History in 

 the Extra-Academical School of Medicine, which is attached to the 

 University of Edinburgh. In 1871 he visited Canada, and was offered 

 the Professorship of Natural History in the University of Toronto, a 

 post which he accepted and retained for three years. He was then 

 elected, almost simultaneously, to the Professorship of Comparative 

 Anatomy and Zoology in the Royal College of Science, Dublin, and to 

 that of Biology in the Durham College of Science ; he accepted the 

 latter appointment, but very shortly after this (in 1875), he received 

 from the Marquess of Ailsa the offer of the Chair of Natural History 

 in the University of St. Andrews. This offer, which was unsolicited, 

 for Nicholson was not a candidate either directly or indirectly, was 

 accepted. In 1877 he was for the first ti'me appointed Swiney Lecturer 

 by the Trustees of the British Museum, and the four courses of lectures 

 which he delivered, were greatly appreciated by his audiences. In the 

 following year, when Sir Wyville Thomson, who occupied the Chair of 



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