THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. VIII. 



No. IX.— SEPTEMBER, 190L 



OlRXG-XJSrj^X^ JLDBTICXiES. 



I. — Eminent Living Geologists : The Rev. Professor T. G. 

 BoNNEY, D.Sc, LL.D., F.RS., F.G.S., F.S.A. 



(WITH A POETRAIT, PLATE XIV.) 



THOMAS GEOEGE BONNEY was born July 27th, 1833, at 

 Eugeley, Staffordshire. His family is of Huguenot origin, and 

 thus affords yet another instance of the remarkable intellectual 

 enrichment of our country which resulted from the religious 

 persecutions in France. His father, the Rev. Thomas Bonney, 

 son of tlie Rev. George Bonney, vicar of Sandon, and sometime 

 Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, was a man of wide and varied 

 interests, and a hard worker, in spite of feeble health ; he was 

 master of the Grammar School, Rugeley, and for many years 

 ' perpetual curate ' of Pipe Ridware, a very small parish about 

 five miles from Rugeley. The church was rebuilt through his 

 efforts, and he took great interest in primary education, acting for 

 some time informally as Inspector of Schools in the Diocese. He 

 married a daughter of Edward Smith, a Staffordshire man of 

 independent means, and died in 1853, leaving a widow and ten 

 children, of whom Professor Bonney, then just entering upon his 

 second year at Cambridge, was the eldest. The family inherited 

 some property, but the income it afforded was small for the education 

 of so many. 



Professor Bonney's inclination towards natural science was to 

 a great extent inherited ; both father and mother were keen botanists 

 and had a general love for natural history, which was shared by all 

 their children. The boys were great collectors of eggs, butterflies, 

 moths, and beetles ; but in Professor Bonney's case a special 

 inclination towards geology was first aroused by the gift of some 

 fossils from a relative, a lady who was herself a good geologist, 

 a friend of Buckland, Sedgwick, and others of that generation. 

 Some four years later — he would then be a boy of about 14 — 

 he visited Filey with his father and mother, and collected fossils 

 there, so that when, soon after, he went to school at Uppingham he 

 was already bitten. 



DECADE IV. VOL. VIII. — NO. IX. 25 



