November 3, 1923] 



NA TURE 



66 



Obituary. 



Rev. H. J. Bidder. 



THE death of Henry Jardin Bidder, fellow of St. 

 John's College, Oxford, which took place on 

 October 19 at his house in Oxford, deprives his 

 College and University of a wise counsellor and the 

 world of a rare and commanding personality. 



Mr. Bidder was born in 1847, and after his school- 

 days at Harrow, spent the whole of his long life in, 

 or in the neighbourhood of, Oxford. He was elected 

 to a fellowship at St. John's in 1873, ^^d having taken 

 Orders, found ample scope for his abounding energy 

 in the service of the Church and in acting as lecturer 

 and tutor and subsequently as Bursar of his College. 

 The post of Bursar he held for twenty-one years, and 

 during that period Mr. Bidder administered the finan- 

 cial affairs of his College with such judgment and 

 ability that when he resigned the office St. John's had 

 become one of the most flourishing colleges in the 

 University. 



A man of wide sympathies, Mr. Bidder espoused 

 with enthusiasm the cause of agriculture and forestry 

 in'the University. He took a leading part in effecting 

 the re-endowment of the Sibthorpian professorship 

 of rural economy and in the establishment of a professor- 

 ship of forestry. Nor will it be ungracious to state 

 that the weight of his influence counted heavily in deter- 

 mining his college to give generous assistance to these 

 departments of the University, in assisting in the 

 provision of buildings, and in putting Bayley Wood 

 at the disposal of the School of Forestry as a training 

 ground for foresters. Mr. Bidder served for many 

 years on the University Forestry Delegacy and was 

 also a most valued Curator of the Oxford Botanic 

 Garden. 



Of the many services which Mr. Bidder rendered 

 to the world none is more conspicuous nor more 

 widely appreciated than that of making the garden 

 of St. John's College the most beautiful in the Uni- 

 versity and among the most beautiful in the world. 

 To the lot of few men has it fallen to give pleasure 

 to so many as did he by his labours in making " his " 

 garden more perfect year by year. Those who shared 

 his love of gardening were sure of a warm welcome 

 to St. John's and a warm place in his heart, and 

 there are many who count among the happiest hours 

 of their life those spent with Mr. Bidder in St. John's 

 garden. They were never sent empty away, but re- 

 ceived the gifts of his large-hearted friendship and of 

 any, even of his most precious, plants which they 

 desired. The rock garden, designed with consummate 

 skill and tended with meticulous care, was perhaps 

 the achievement of which Mr. Bidder was most proud : 

 and justly, for in it Alpine plants, even the most 

 difficult, found congenial place, and flourished so that 

 tluy made St. John's rock garden in springtime the 

 most lovely corner of Oxford. 



Tall and stalwart, authoritative, broad-minded, not 

 always vcr^' patient, but of exquisite courtesy, Mr. 

 Bidder was greatly beloved. He was humorous, too, 

 with a spire of teasing malice which gave piquancy 

 to his conversation and endeared him the more to his 

 friends. His voice was beautiful, and there was a 

 ■graciousness in his demeanour which made each time 

 of meeting him a memorable occasion. F. K. 



NO. 2818, VOL. I 12] 



Dr. William Crooke. 



It is with great regret that we record the death 

 of Dr. William Crooke, the widely-known authority 

 on Indian ethnology, which occurred on October 25 

 after an operation. 



William Crooke was born in 1848, and after taking 

 his degree at Dublin University, entered the Indian 

 Civil Service (Bengal) in 187 1. While engaged in 

 official duties as magistrate and collector in the 

 United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, he took up the 

 study of ethnology. As a result, in 1896 he published 

 " Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India," 

 and " The Tribes and Castes of the North- Western 

 Provinces and Oudh." The latter was undoubtedly 

 his greatest work. It naturally owed much to his 

 predecessors, such as Risley Dalton, Tod, and Malcolm ; 

 but it differed from any previous account in supplying 

 a more detailed description of the manners, religions, 

 marriage customs, and institutions of the people. Its 

 most valuable part was the record of Crooke's own ob- 

 servations, made in the course of a long service at Mirza- 

 pore, on the Dravidian peoples, whose culture was then 

 rapidly disappearing before Brahmanical propaganda. 



On his retirement from the Civil Service, Crooke was 

 for a time honorary secretary of the Royal Anthropo- 

 logical Institute ; but he finally settled at Cheltenham 

 and devoted himself to the study of folklore and Indian 

 ethnology. These studies bore fruit in a number of 

 contributions to the proceedings of learned societies 

 and in other publications. In addition to the two 

 books mentioned above he published : " ;\n Indian 

 Glossary," 1903 ; " Things Indian," 1906 ; and " The 

 Peoples of Northern India," 1907. He also contri- 

 buted a large number of articles to Hastings' " En- 

 cyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics." For many years 

 he was a constant contributor of paragraphs on 

 anthropological ' subjects to Nature, and his last 

 contributions were received only a few days before 

 he entered the nursing home where he died. 



Crooke's intimate acquaintance with folklore and 

 primitive custom, as well as his wide knowledge of 

 Indian archaeology and history, and his explorations 

 in the byways of the literature on India, rendered him 

 an ideal editor. In this capacity he produced Fryer's 

 " New Account of East India and Persia " (Haklu\i: 

 Society, 1909) ; Tod's " Annals and Antiquities of 

 Rajasthan," 1920 ; and Herklot's " Islam in India," 

 192 1. In each case his work was highly praised by the 

 most competent critics. 



In 1910, Crooke was president of the Anthropo- 

 logical Section of the British Association at the Sheffield 

 meeting, and in 1911-12 he was president of the Folk- 

 lore Society. In 1919 the University of Oxford con- 

 ferred upon him the honorary degree of D.Sc, and 

 in 1920 his own University of Dublin honoured liim 

 with the degree of Litt.D. He had recently been 

 elected ajellow of the British Academy. 



We regret to announce the following deaths : 

 Mr. Charles Burckhalter, astronomer and meteor- 

 ologist, director of the Chabot Observatory since 1885, 

 .on September 20, aged seventv-four. 



Prof. H. B. I^athke, formerly honorary professor of 

 chriTiistry at Marburg University, aged eighty-four. 



