A YORKSHIRE RECTOR OF THE EIGHTEENTH 

 CENTURY.* 



Sir ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, O.M., K.C.B., F.R.S., D.C.L. 



When the Yorkshire Union of NaturaHsts honoured me by 

 electing me to be its President for this 3'ear, the only, or at 

 least the chief duty of the ofhce being the dehvery of an Address 

 at the Annual Meeting, my thoughts naturally turned to the 

 consideration of the subject which might most fitly be chosen 

 as the theme of that Address. It so happened, that for a year 

 or more, I had been engaged in a somewhat extensive enquiry 

 into the lives and work of men of science who flourished in 

 this country during the eighteenth century. Among these 

 worthies there was one whose career greatly interested me. 

 He was highly respected and esteemed by his contemporaries ; 

 but subsequent generations have shown less recognition of the 

 wide range of his genius, and the originality and value of his 

 achievements. As he was a Yorkshire Rector, it occurred to 

 me that an account of what this man did for the advancement 

 of science would be a not inappropriate topic on which to 

 address a Union of Yorkshire students of Nature. With this 

 object in view I have made researches in every direction that 

 seemed likely to yield information regarding him and his 

 studies, and I now piopose to lay before jt^ou an outline of the 

 result of my enquiries, f 



John Michell, Rector of Thornhill, a parish in the southern 

 division of the West Riding, was probably born in the year 

 1724. In the registers of Queen's College, Cambridge, he is 

 entered as from Nottingham. He became a Pensioner of that 

 College in 1742, but did not take his Bachelor's degree until 

 1748. His name appeared as fourth wrangler in the list for 

 1748-9, and in the latter year he was elected a Fellow of his 

 College. For some fifteen years he continued to reside at 

 Queen's, where he filled, from year to j^ear, a succession of 

 lectureships in classics and mathematics, and also held the 

 office of Tutor. He obtained his degree of M.A. in 1752 and 

 took a Bachelorship in Divinity in 1761. Having entered 

 holy orders, he was in 1760 appointed Rector of St. Botolph's 

 Church in Cambridge. Thenceforward, to the end of his life, 

 he was an active clergyman who, besides discharging the 

 clerical duties of a country parish, found time to prosecute 

 serious studies in the vast domain of natural knowledge. Over 

 that domain he ranged far and wide, more especially in the 

 fields of physics, astronomy and geology. Gifted with great 



* The Presidential Address delivered to the Yorkshire Naturalists* 

 Union, at Wakefield, on December 8th, 1917. 

 t A more detailed Memoir will appear later. 



1918 Jan. 1. 



