XXI 



BIOGEAPHIGAL NOTICE OF PEOFESSOE 

 EOLLESTON 1 



GEORGE EOLLESTON'S death, which took place in Oxford on 

 16th June 1881, may well be called premature, as he was in 

 the prime of life, and but a few months before seemed to all, 

 except a few closely observant intimate associates, still in the 

 plentitude of his powers, and capable of much good work in 

 time to come. 



The son of a Yorkshire clergyman, he was born at Maltby, 

 on 30th July 1829, and had, therefore, not completed his fifty- 

 second year. His early aptitude for classical studies, carried 

 on under the instruction of his father, must have been most 

 remarkable if, as has been stated in one of his biographies, he 

 was able at the age of ten to read any passage of Homer at 

 sight. He was not educated at one of the great public 

 schools, but entered at Pembroke College, Oxford, took a 

 First Class in clasisics in 1850, and was elected a Fellow 

 of his college in 1851. He then studied medicine at St. 

 Bartholomew's Hospital, joined the staff of the British Civil 

 Hospital at Smyrna during the latter part of the Crimean 

 war, was appointed assistant - physician to the Children's 

 Hospital in London, 1857, but took up his residence again 

 at Oxford in the same year on receiving the appointment of 

 Lee's Eeader in Anatomy in Christchurch. In 1860 he was 

 elected to the newly-founded Linacre Professorship of Anatomy 

 and Physiology, which he held to the time of his death. He 

 was elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 1862, and a 

 Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 18*72. He was a 



1 From the Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. xxxiii. 1882, with slight 

 alterations. 



