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number had reached 334. In 1857 he built a club room in the gardens. 

 Various co-operative schemes were started for the labourers' benefit; 

 one of these has been immortalised by Charles Dickens, who visited 

 the club room in April, 1859, and afterwards gave an account of what 

 he saw in the first number of " All the Year Eound." The welfare of 

 his workmen at his various factories was equally considered. He 

 exercised a wide private benevolence, and in his own parish was never 

 appealed to in vain for any good work. 



Sir John Lawes' life was prolonged to an unusual period ; he lived 

 and worked and taught through two successive generations. His health 

 remained very good till within about a week of his death. He died at 

 Rothamsted on August 31, 1900, in his 86th year, and was buried at 

 Harpenden. His only son, Sir Charles Bennet Lawes, who has 

 assumed the additional name of Wittewronge, succeeds to the 

 Rothamsted estate.* 



E, W. 



SIR JOSEPH HENKY GILBERT. 1817-1901. 



Joseph Henry Gilbert was bom at Hull on August 1, 1817. He 

 was the second son of the Rev. Joseph Gilbert, a Congregational 

 Minister, who had previously held the position of Professor of Classics 

 at the Divinity College, Rotherham. His mother belonged to a well- 

 known literary family, and under her maiden name of Ann Taylor, was 

 a popular authoress of poems for children. The family removed in 

 1825 to Nottingham, and it was here that the boyhood of Joseph 

 Henry Gilbert was spent. He was first sent to an elementary school 

 taught by a blind lady of great intelligence, and afterwards to a school 

 kept by Mr. Long at Mansfield. In 1832, while at Scarborough, he 

 met with a serious gunshot accident, which permanently deprived him 

 of the sight of one eye, and considerably damaged the other; his 

 general health suffered much from the shock, and it was some years 

 before he was able to resume his studies. During this interval he 

 in 1838 paid a visit to St. Petersburg. In the autumn of 1838 he 

 became a student at the University of Glasgow; here he devoted 

 nearly a year to the study of analytical chemistry in the laboratory 



* Some further facts relating to Sir John Lawes, and views of his career, will 

 be found in Nature, September 13, 1900, p. 467 ; Jour. Roy. Agri. Soc., 1900, p. 511 ; 

 Trans. Chem. Soc., 1901, p. 890 ; Agricultural Gazette, lii., 1900, p. 228 ; Agricultural 

 Students' Gazette, x., p. 37. 



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