CHAPTER II 



EARLY LIFE IN LONDON 



University College, London Matriculation Thomas Graham Alex- 

 ander Williamson I become Assistant to Williamson Stanley 

 Jevons Brodie. 



UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, in the late 'forties and 

 early 'fifties was at the heyday of its usefulness and 

 prosperity. Founded in 1828 by many supporters of 

 free education, including Thomas Campbell the poet, 

 it became, after the rejection by the House of Lords in 

 1834 of a Bill to admit Dissenters to degrees in Oxford 

 and Cambridge, the chief and indeed the only seat of 

 higher learning and research open freely to men of every 

 religious persuasion. No tests of any description were im- 

 posed on either teachers or taught, and the lecture-rooms 

 and laboratories were filled with students from all parts, 

 whose religious tenets prevented their entrance to the 

 older seats of learning. That the professors were men 

 of independent views, each master of his subject, is 

 proved by the fact that among them were De Morgan, 

 Francis Newman, Maiden, Sharpey, Graham, Lindley, 

 Williamson, Jenner, and Listen. Their system of in- 

 struction was based rather on the German and Scottish 

 methods than on those of Oxford and Cambridge. They 

 were professorial rather than tutorial. Many of the 

 students of my time afterwards made their mark in the 

 world. Lister had just completed his medical studies ; 



