2 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER . chap. 



handsome figure was to be seen riding almost daily 

 in Hyde Park up to the time of his death in 1883. 

 During the latter years of his life he laboured 

 incessantly for the good of animals, especially horses, 

 his main efforts being directed towards the abolition 

 of bearing-reins and the better paving of the London 

 streets. 



His mother was born at St. Albans in 1804, 

 and died at her residence, 16 Hyde Park Gardens, 

 in 1884; she was the daughter of John Greaves of 

 Radford Semele, Warwickshire, and sister of Edward 

 Greaves, who represented Warwick in Parliament for 

 many years. She, too, was tall, of strong character 

 and pronounced literary tastes. 



To Edward Fordham and Celina Flower were 

 born four children, the eldest of whom, Richard, 

 died in infancy ; the second son was Charles Edward, 

 the founder of the Shakespeare Memorial and the 

 initiator of many beneficent works, who lived at 

 Avonbank, Stratford -on- Avon, till his lamented 

 death in 1892 ; the third is the subject of this 

 Memoir; and the youngest, Edgar, born in 1833, of 

 Middle Hill, Broadway, Worcestershire, in which 

 beautiful house he died in 1903. 



Flower's early life was passed very quietly at 

 Stratford, then a small and remote country town. 

 Much of his time was spent out of doors, but the 

 foundations of his education were being carefully laid 

 by his mother, who had a great belief in exercising 

 mind and memory by reading and reciting poetry, 



