182 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



afterwards the Kingston division of Surrey until 1895. He was also 

 a member of the London School Board from 1884 to 1894, and vice- 

 chairman from 1885 to 1888. 



The preceding list of the posts filled by Sir R. Temple is very far 

 from complete. Few men have played more parts upon the world's 

 stage, and very few have been more successful as officials. He was a 

 man of great abilities, combined with unusual capacity for work, he 

 was an admirable worker, a fairly good speaker and an accomplished 

 artist, but his predominating talent was his wonderful energy. Many 

 tales are told in India of great power of getting through work, and of 

 his tact in dealing with difficult questions. 



Of Sir R. Temple's labours as official and statesman it is unnecessary 

 to write here, but a few instances may be mentioned in which he was 

 able to promote scientific work, or to effect economic improvements by 

 adopting scientific methods. The establishment and protection of 

 reserved forests in India received much support from him ; he was first 

 impressed with the importance of the subject when he was a member 

 of the Financial Commission in 1860, and when Chief Commissioner of 

 the Central Provinces in 1863, acting under the advice of the Inspector- 

 General of Forests, Dr. (now Sir Dietrich) Brandis, he took steps, by 

 adopting measures for the preservation of reserved forests from fires, 

 and in other ways, which have resulted in the conversion of worthless 

 scrub into valuable sources of timber supply. This beneficial work, 

 carried out in spite of much opposition by both Europeans and natives, 

 official and non-official, was afterwards continued by Sir R. Temple in 

 Bengal and Bombay, and has become general throughout India, In 

 Bengal also the reservation and protection of large tracts in the 

 Sundarbans for forest supply was due to him. He also assisted in the 

 establishing of cinchona plantations in Sikkim, and in the creation 

 of a manufactory which now supplies quinine at a low price throughout 

 Bengal, a great boon to a population decimated by malaria. 



To the active aid of Sir R. Temple, when he was Lieut.-Governor of 

 Bengal, is due the establishment of the flourishing Zoological Gardens 

 of Calcutta. The Committee appointed by the Asiatic and Agri- 

 Horticultural Societies had experienced the greatest difficulty in 

 securing a good site, when the question was taken up and solved by 

 the intervention of the Lieut.-Governor, who secured for zoological 

 purposes the excellent garden now occupied at Alipore. 



Sir R. Temple was the author of several works on India, he also 

 published some autobiographical sketches, and an account of the House 

 of Commons from his pen appeared in 1899. He was a Member of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal from 1860, and a Fellow of the Royal 

 Geographical Society from 1865. After his retirement from India, in 

 1880, he was for some years a member of the Council of the last-named 



