xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 



gardens in 1852, and before his death the number had reached 

 334. In 1857 he built a club room in the gardens. Various 

 co-operative schemes were started for the labourer's benefit ; 

 one of these has been immortahsed by Charles Dickens, who 

 visited the club room in April 1859, and afterwards gave an 

 account of what he saw in the first number of All the Year 

 Round. The welfare of his workmen at his various factories 

 was equally considered. He exercised a wide private benevo- 

 lence, and in his own parish was never appealed to in vain for 

 any good work. 



Sir John Lawes' life was prolonged to an unusual period ; 

 he lived and worked and taught through two successive 

 generations. His health remained very good till within about 

 a week of his death. He died at Rothamsted on August 31, 

 1900, in his 86tli year, and was buried at Harpenden. His 

 only son. Sir Charles Bennet Lawes, who has assumed the 

 additional name of Wittewronge, succeeds to the Rothamsted 

 estate. 



Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert, 1817-1901 



Joseph Henry Gilbert was born at Hull on August 1, 

 1817. He was the second son of the Rev. Joseph Gilbert, a 

 Congregational Minister, who had previously held the position 

 of Professor of Classics at the Divinity College, Rotherham. 

 His mother belonged to a well-known literary family, and 

 under her maiden name of Ann Taylor, was a popular authoress 

 of poems for children. The family removed in 1825 to 

 Nottingham, and it vvas here that the boyhood of Joseph Henry 

 Gilbert was spent. He was first sent to an elementary school 

 taught by a blind lady of great intelligence, and afterwards to a 

 school kept by Mr Long at Mansfield. In 1832, while at Scar- 

 borough, he met with a serious gunshot accident, which per- 

 manently deprived him of the sight of one eye, and considerably 

 damaged the other ; his general health suffered much from the 



