52 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



family centre. Samuel Tertlus and Francis Galton and many of the 

 family are buried in Claverdon churchyard. The earlier Galtons were 

 buried in the yard of the quaint little Meeting House of the Society 

 of Friends at Birmingham, a photograph of which is here reproduced. 



Of Samuel Tertius Galton (see Plates XXXIII and XXXIV) we 

 have many accounts from his children'. Francis Galton describes him 

 as "one of the most honorable and kindl}'^ of men and eminently 

 statistical by nature^" 



" When we children quarrelled," writes Mrs Wheler, " and went to my Father or 

 Mother to complain, he used to send one into one corner of the room, and the other into 

 the opposite corner, and at the word of command, each had to rush into the other's 

 arms. This made us laugh and ended the dispute. My Father was a <rwe peace-maker, 

 he always turned the matter oflF playfully. He was fond of science, and took much 

 interest in all new improvements. He liked measuring hills and mountains with his 

 portable barometer, which we always took on a journey and which required great care 

 not to break." 



The scientific instruments, however, with which he amused and 

 instructed his children appear to have been chiefly those purchased by 

 his father. Samuel Tertius does not seem to have been a man of quite 

 the vigour or originality of his father, but he inherited his father's 

 public spirit and much of his business capacity. He was High Bailiff 

 of Birmingham in 1814, and took up the addresses from that town to 

 the Prince Regent on the restoration of peace and on the marriage of 

 Princess Charlotte. This public work was continued as magistrate and 

 deputy-lieutenant after his removal to Leamington. He was called 

 upon to act in numerous arbitrations owing to the widespread esteem 

 for his good sense and judgment. It is reported that he never kept 

 a poor man waiting, always saying " Time was money to the poor." 

 While he suffered, as his father and grandfather liad done, and his sons 



' He was educated at Dr Valpy's School, Reading, and was entered in 1799, 

 aged 16, as a pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge. His father's account-book 

 would seem to show that he went into residence, but he did not matriculate, and we 

 soon after find him in a commercial office in Liverpool. 



- His only published work: "A Chart exhibiting the Relation between the Amount 

 of Bank of England Notes in Circulation, the Rate of Foreign Exchanges, and the 

 Prices of Gold and Silver Bullion and of Wheat, accompanied with Explanatory 

 Observations," London, 1813, is a graphical consideration of what we now term the corre- 

 lation of these variates. It is a strong attack on an inconvertible paper circulating 

 medium, and predicts disastrous consequences as invariably following such a system. 

 It must have been quite useful in its day. 



