4 ‘ “  REPoRT—1890. 
The illustrious President of our last meeting here, concerning whose 
health the gravest apprehensions were not long since entertained, is 
happily still preserved to us; still intellectually bright at the ripe age 
of eighty-six, and still, with the keen pleasure of his early life, following 
the progress of those branches of scientific research which have constituted 
the favourite occupations and the arena of many intellectual triumphs 
of a long career of ardent and successful devotion to the advancement of 
science. 
To not a few of those who have flocked to Leeds to attend the annual 
gathering of this Association, our present mecting-place is doubtless 
known chiefly by its proud position as one of the most thriving manufac- 
turing towns of the United Kingdom ; of ancient renown, especially in 
connection with one of the chief industries identified with Great Britain 
in years past. But this good town of Leeds, whose cloth market was 
described by Daniel Defce, one hundred and sixty odd years ago, as ‘a 
prodigy of its kind, and not to be equalled in the world,’ and whose pre- 
sent position in connection with divers of our great industries would have 
equally excited the enthusiasm of that graphic writer, is famous for other 
things than its prominent association with manufactures and commerce. 
Not many of our great industrial centres can boast of so goodly an 
array, upon the scroll of their past history, of names of men eminent in 
the Sciences, the Arts and Manufactures, in Divinity and Letters, and in 
heroic achievements, such as are identified with Leeds and its immediate 
vicinity: Thomas, Lord Fairfax, one of the most prominent heroes of 
the Commonwealth; Smeaton, an intellectual giant among engineers ; 
William Hirst and John Marshall, illustrious examples of the men who 
by their genius, energy, and perseverance placed Great Britain upon the 
pinnacle of industrial and commercial greatness which she so long occu- 
pied unassailed; Richard Bentley, the eminent classic and divine; John 
Nicholson, the Airedale poet; John Fowler and Peter Fairbairn, worthy 
followers in the footsteps of Smeaton; Isaac Milner, weaver and mathe- 
matician, afterwards Senior Wrangler, Smith's prizeman, Jacksonian 
Professor, President of Queens’ College, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge 
University, Dean of Carlisle, and a most illustrious Fellow of the Royal 
Society; Thoresby, antiquarian and topographer; Benjamin Wilson, 
painter, and industrious contributor to the development of electrical 
science; William Hey, the eminent surgeon, and friend and counsellor of 
Priestley ; Sadler, political economist and philanthropist; the brothers 
Sheepshanks—Richard, the astronomer, and John, the accomplished patron 
of the arts, and munificent contributor to our national art treasures; 
Edward Baines, whose conspicuous talents and energy developed a small 
provincial journal into one of the most powerful public organs of the 
country ; his talented sons, of whom not the least conspicuous and highly 
respected was the late Sir Edward Baines. I might swell this voluminous 
list by reference to illustrious members of such families as those of Denison, 
a 
