Original Members 21 



literary knowledge and formed a large library, dying at Button, 

 Surrey, on April and, 1886. 



PROFESSOR JAMES SPENCE was the son of an Edinburgh merchant, 

 born in that city in 1812, and educated at its University, and 

 admitted to its College of Surgeons in 1832. After two voyages 

 to Calcutta as surgeon to an East Indiaman, he began to practise 

 and lecture in Edinburgh, ultimately becoming Professor of Surgery 

 in 1864. He was noted as a skilful dissector and operator, with 

 a preference for the older methods of treatment. He died in 

 Edinburgh on June 6th, 1882. 



COLONEL WILLIAM HENRY SYKES, a member of an old Yorkshire 

 family, was born in that county on Jan. 25th, 1790, and obtained 

 a commission from the East India Company. After the siege 

 of Bhurtpur in 1805, he had experience of active service in the 

 Deccan from 1817 to 1820, and then returned home to spend four 

 years in continental travel. On resuming work in India, he was 

 employed for the next few years on its statistics and natural history, 

 both resulting in valuable reports. After this, in 1831, he re- 

 turned to England as Lieutenant-Colonel (finally retiring as a full 

 Colonel), and was employed in various capacities, dying in London 

 on June i6th, 1872. He was a zealous and scientific observer, with 

 wide interests, especially in zoology and mineralogy, antiquities 

 and statistics. 



SIR CHARLES WHEATSTONE, remarkable for his scientific ability 

 and inventive powers, was the son of a Gloucester music-seller, 

 born there in February 1802. At the age of twenty-two he began 

 business as a musical instrument maker in London, and obtained 

 valuable results from a scientific study of sound. Turning next to 

 light and optics, he invented the stereoscope, and showed (in 1835) 

 that the spectrum of the electric spark consisted of rays of different 

 refrangibih'ty, and the lines thus produced would reveal the presence 

 of even a minute portion of any metal. Another invention was a 

 polarization clock ; then, soon after being appointed Professor of 

 Experimental Physics at King's College, came inventions which 

 made the electric telegraph available for the public transmission of 

 messages, which were followed by experiments on submarine cables. 

 He was also a most ingenious reader of hieroglyphs and despatches 

 in cipher. He became F.R.S. in 1836, received honorary doctorates 

 from Oxford and Cambridge, was knighted in 1868, and died in Paris, 

 Oct. igth, 1875. 



MR, WILLH.M HENRY Fox TALBOT, one of the pioneers of photo- 

 graphy, was a man of good family, born at Chippenham, Wilts., on 

 Feb. nth, 1800. From Harrow he went to Trinity, Cambridge, 

 won a Person Prize, and graduated as twelfth wrangler and 

 second Chancellor's Medallist in 1821. After two or three mathe- 



