Ohituary — Richard Hoicse, M.A. 383 



Dr. Johnston of Berwick, Albany Hancock, and Joshua Alder were 

 working out the Invertebrates of the North-East coast, when the 

 materials for Baker's "Flora" were being accumulated by Watson, 

 Bowman, Wailes, and Oliver, when George Tate of Alnwick was 

 classifying the Lower Carboniferous rocks of North Northumberland, 

 and William Hutton, with Lindley and Witham, was bringing out 

 his Fossil Flora, when King was beginning his Permian work, 

 when Bold was cataloguing the insects of the district, and when 

 John Hancock and Hewitson wei-e studying its birds and their eggs. 

 Mr. Howse was a fellow-worker with all these men and. later, with 

 Atthey, Norman, Hodge, Embleton, Kirk by, Duff, Dinning, the 

 two Bradys, and others of whom some are still with us. He 

 botanized, geologized, dredged, collected fossils, and all things — in 

 a universal way almost appalling to a modern specialist. Moreover, 

 in geology he was by no means a mere collector, for he did 

 a considerable amount of original mapping — as in Weardale and in 

 Redesdale — long before the Geological Survey had entered upon 

 the ground. Chiefly in order to be nearer the Museum and the 

 Library of the Literary and Philosophical Society he after a few 

 years removed from Shields to Newcastle, where he opened another 

 private school, in which many of the present leading men of the 

 North were educated — including, I believe, the actual senior 

 Member for the city. When Dr. King left Newcastle Mr. Howse 

 succeeded to the Curatorship of the Museum, still keeping school, 

 however, and devoting only what time he could spare to the 

 collections. But this was for a short period only, and in the 

 seventies he was able to relinquish teaching and give his whole 

 time to the Museum. The removal of the specimens, many of 

 which had scarcely been unpacked before for lack of room, and their 

 entire rearrangement in the Hancock Museum (largely due to the 

 liberality of the late Lord Armstrong, and opened by the Prince of 

 Wales in 1884), were carried out by him with the assistance of his 

 well-known and capable lieutenant, Mr. Joseph Wright. Curating 

 was not his only work : he was ex-officio editor of the joint 

 Transactions of the Natural History Society and Field Club, and 

 also for many years one of the Honorary Secretaries of the latter. 

 Mr. Howse's publications were far too numerous to be fully 

 detailed here. Amongst the most important must be mentioned 

 an admirable Synopsis of the Geology of Northumberland and 

 Durham, written jointly with. Mr. Kirkby for the use of the British 

 Association in 1863 ; a Catalogue of Permian Fossils, with a later 

 Supplement, which gave rise to a lively priority dispute with 

 Dr. King, whose own '• Catalogue " appeared almost on the same 

 day as Mr, Howse's ; a Catalogue of the Hutton Collection of Fossil 

 Plants ; one of the local Carboniferous Fossils in the Museum ; 

 another of the Fishes, etc. ; and some joint palaaontological papers 

 with Albany Hancock and others. Of purely geological memoirs 

 two — one on the Boundary between the Millstone Grit and the 

 Carboniferous Limestone Series and the other on the Divisions of 

 the Drift in the North of England — were of special value. 



