436 Presidentship of Thomas Henry Huxley 1883 



had already chosen Cambridge as the scene of his scientific 

 life. There as far back as 1847 he was appointed to be 

 Deputy-Professor of Anatomy, succeeding to the Professor- 

 ship in 1866 and becoming Professor of Surgery in 1883. 

 He was the life and soul of the medical school of Cambridge, 

 which largely owes to him its flourishing renown. He was 

 one of the most charming of companions, and to sit next 

 him at the high table of King's College, Cambridge, or at 

 the board of the Royal Society Club was a pleasure of which 

 the memory was always treasured. 



Six days after this Anniversary Meeting the President, 

 William Spottiswoode, died, to the great regret of the Fellows 

 of the Royal Society and the members of the Club. His 

 last appearance at the Club was on the igth April 1883. 

 The Royal Society Council was convened at once to nominate 

 a new President until St. Andrew's Day, and on 5th July 

 Professor Huxley was selected for the office. He had resigned 

 his membership of the Club in the preceding year, but on 

 application to him the Treasurers ascertained that he would 

 be willing to accede to the unanimous wish of the members 

 that he should accept the Presidentship of the Club. Accord- 

 ingly at the next meeting he was at once elected President. 

 He was able to attend five meetings in the first half of the 

 year 1884, and was prevailed on to come to the Anni- 

 versary in the following year. Unhappily, however, his 

 health had begun to fail, and after two years of impaired 

 activity, he in 1885 resigned his Presidentship and retired 

 from public life, though he would still now and again flash 

 his genius upon the world, as in his Romanes Lecture of 

 1893. He declined the offer of knighthood which had been 

 made to him in recognition of his great services to science 

 and to the progress of education. But at last in 1892, two 

 years before he passed away, he accepted the honour of 

 being made a Privy Councillor. 



Among the visitors who this year appeared at the Club 

 reference may here be made to Professor Bonamy Price, 

 the well-known economist and Professor of Political Economy 

 at Oxford who was introduced by Gwyn Jeffreys on 22nd 



