2 EOTHAMSTED. 



on exclusively at his own expense, and by him it has been 

 bequeathed to the nation, with an endowment ample for all 

 time to come. 



The Manor of Eothamsted is situated in the county of 

 Hertford, twenty-five miles north of London, four miles from 

 St Albans, and adjoins the village, and is mainly included in 

 the parish, of Harpenden. It has been in the possession of 

 the present family since 1623. In that year it was pur- 

 chased from the owner, Bardolf, for John Wittewronge, 

 a minor, whose ancestor, Jaques Wittewronge, had, about 

 1564, on account of religious persecutions, left Flanders and 

 settled at Stantonbury, in Buckinghamshire. John Witte- 

 wronge was first created a knight and afterwards a baronet 

 by Charles II. In the absence of male heirs the baronetcy 

 lapsed, and the Lawes family succeeded to the estate by 

 marriage with Mary Bennet, great-granddaughter of James 

 Wittewronge. 



John Bennet Lawes, the first of the name, died in 1822, 

 and was succeeded by his son, the present owner. The son, 

 who was born in 1814, and was thus only eight years of age 

 at the time of his father's death, was educated at Eton and 

 Oxford. He entered into possession of Eothamsted in 1834, 

 and soon after began the great work which has been the 

 chief concern of his long industrious life, and which will 

 make his name familiar through centuries to come. 



The Manor-house of Eothamsted is a picturesque struc- 

 ture of considerable antiquity. Dating from about 1470, it 

 has been enlarged and somewhat altered in form at various 

 times. The present owner made extensive additions on one 

 side of the house, but has been careful to preserve the 

 character of the old building, which is well shown in the 

 plate facing page 10. 



What manner of man John Bennet Lawes the Second was 

 in his youth, and by what influences he was led into his 

 great work of agricultural research, are quaintly set forth 

 in an autobiographical note written by him in 1888 to his 

 attached friend, the late Mr John Chalmers Morton, editor of 

 the ' Agricultural Gazette.' It runs as follows : — 



Dear Mr Morton, —In answer to your inquiries, it is always diffi- 

 cult to predict whether a juvenile taste will develop in after-life into 

 anything useful. To write upon the door of a dark room with a stick 

 of phosphorus, to dissolve a penny in nitric acid, or to convey an 

 electric shock to your old housekeeper, who " refused to touch the jar 

 with her hand, but did not mind touching it with the end of the 

 poker"; these are feats which, with the accompanying destruction 

 of clothes and furniture, cause the elders of the house to look with 

 unfavourable eyes at a boy with a taste for chemistry. In my day, 



