CHAPTER IX 



APPOINTMENT TO THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM 



At the close of the year 1883 Sir Richard Owen, 

 being then in his eightieth year, placed his resigna- 

 tion of the post of Superintendent of the Zoological 

 Departments in the hands of the Trustees of the 

 British Museum, and retired to the pretty cottage 

 near the Sheen Lodge in Richmond Park, lent 

 him by the late Queen, where for nine years more 

 he continued to enjoy the calm and beauty of the 

 congenial surroundings of his new home, until he 

 died, literally of old age, on December 18, 1892. 



The appointment of his successor lay, according 

 to statute, not with the general body of the Trustees 

 of the British Museum, but with three principal 

 members of that eminent body, the Archbishop of 

 Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker 

 of the House of Commons. Among the other 

 Trustees of the institution were the King, who 

 as Prince of Wales took a keen interest in the 

 welfare of the great national institution in the 

 control of which he was associated, the Duke of 

 Argyll, and Lord Walsingham. The three chief 



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