A Yorkshire Rector of the Eighteenth Century. 9 



There is no record of his ever having given a course of 

 lectures on the subject for the furtherance of which the Chair 

 had been founded by Dr. Woodward. But we may well 

 believe that he must often have discussed that subject with his 

 friends, and not improbably he would now and then be ac- 

 companied by undergraduates in his geological rambles. 

 Had he retained the professorship, and with it his residence in 

 Cambridge, he would doubtless have prosecuted more exten- 

 sively the geological studies in which he was interested through- 

 out his life, and the progress of Geology in this country would 

 have been stimulated. But he held the chair for less than two 

 years. It was not tenable by a married man, and Michell in 

 September, 1764, took to wife a Miss Williamson of Nottingham," 

 and left Cambridge, looking forward to a quiet and happy life 

 in a Hampshire rectory to which he had been appointed. In 

 the autumn of the following year, however, he had the great 

 misfortune to lose his wife. He subsequently married again, 

 his second wife surviving him. He left a daughter, probably 

 by the first wife, and apparently his only child. On 3rd 

 October, 1767, he was instituted Rector of Thornhill, and 

 there he continued to live up till his death on 21st April, 

 1793, in the 69th year of his age. 



In the summer of 1871, a popular English journal* published 

 a communication from a contributor who described himself as 

 a great-grandson of Michell, and who gave some particulars 

 relating to the life of the philosopher, derived, as he stated, 

 from his grandmother, Michell's daughter. These particulars, as 

 a welcome addition to the scanty information previously avail- 

 able, have been made use of from time to time, though some- 

 times with hesitation, in biographical notices of Michell. Some 

 of these family traditions can be shown to be inaccurate. One 

 of them narrates that William Herschel, afterwards the famous 

 astronomer, when he was organist at Halifax used to perform 

 on the violin at musical parties given by the Rector of Thornhill ; 

 that he received lessons at Thornhill rectory on the construction 

 of reflecting telescopes, and that he there ' obtained the germs 

 of his great astronomical renown.' The truth is that Herschel 

 had left Yorkshire for a busy life as professional musician at 

 Bath before Michell settled at Thornhill. Not only did the 

 two men not meet at Thornhill in Herschel's musical days, 

 but it would appear that they had neither become acquainted 

 with each other nor exchanged letters up to the spring of the 

 year I78i.t Whether Michell had begun to grind his specula 

 and build his telescopes as early as 1767 may be doubted. But 

 he never gave lessons to Herschel, who with much labour and 



* English Mechanic, Vol. XIII., p. 310, June i6th, 1871. 



t See Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel (1912), Vol. I., p. 32. 



1918 Jan. 1. 



