THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. 73 



College, and to reside as Principal in University Hall. 

 Two years later, however, the new Charter of 1858 intro- 

 duced changes in the constitution of the University which 

 involved a considerable increase in the duties of the 

 Registrar, and he then relinquished his other functions, and 

 devoted himself with undivided zeal to his administrative 

 labours. His tenure of office for three and twenty years 

 coincided with a vast expansion of the operations and 

 influence of the University, in the direction of which he 

 took a leading share. His large knowledge of the needs 

 and conditions of higher education, especially medical and 

 scientific, bore rapid fruit. The arrangements for degrees 

 in science owed their first forms chiefly to him, and in 

 working them out practically his organizing skill and his 

 mastery of detail were repeatedly tested and not found 

 wanting. His business qualities enabled him to perform 

 mere routine work with great despatch, while the history 

 of each step of departmental development seemed to fix 

 itself without effort in his accurate and retentive memory. 

 Thus as years went on, he became a sort of storehouse of 

 precedents which he could recall and apply with unusual 

 facility ; and it often happened that when administrative 

 changes were proposed by younger men he could retrace 

 the occasion of similar suggestions long before, and the 

 reasons which had been urged against them, and had pre- 

 vailed. The whole aim of his work was to bring the 

 University as closely as possible into contact with the 

 higher educational life of the country. His extensive 

 experience and his willingness to impart information or 

 advice made him in time a centre to which the promoters 

 of all kinds of educational enterprises might resort ; and in 

 the rise of many of the local colleges in the great provincial 

 towns, he took the keenest interest. His position, more- 

 over, placed him in connection with many distinguished 



