386 Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc, F.R.S. 



Of course, no Natural Science was taught at scliool in those days, 

 but in compensation football and cricket were then regarded merely 

 as recreations and had not attained to their present tyranny, so that 

 the boys were free to take country walks, and were even rather 

 encouraged to do so. Here, then, was an opportunity for fossil- 

 collecting, and though none of the other boys were geologically- 

 minded, several of them were egg-collectors, and as Bonney was 

 that too, his occasional search for fossils was excused as an amiable 

 weakness. Before he left, Bonney was head of the school, and in 

 1852, having obtained a School Exhibition, he went to Cambridge, 

 entering at St. John's College, where he was fortunate enough to 

 obtain a scholarship at once. 



His school-teaching had been chiefly classical (of the Oxford 

 stamp), but he owed to two of the masters a real liking for 

 mathematics, and the Headmaster had given him a taste for 

 literature. While at Cambridge the famous ' Coprolite ' pits of the 

 Cambridge Greensand began to be opened, and Bonney was 

 amongst the earliest to collect from the rich and remarkable fauna 

 they revealed. As he was reading for both the Mathematical and 

 Classical Tripos there was naturally no time for attending lectures 

 on science, yet the fame of Sedgwick drew him now and then 

 within the walls of the geological lecture-room, and he had 

 the privilege of heai'ing the ' old man eloquent ' ; but a regular 

 course of geological or other science lectures he never attended, 

 and hence to some extent no doubt the individuality and indepen- 

 dence of his systematic views. Professor Bonney took his degree 

 in 1856 ; he was 12th Wrangler, and 16th in the second class of 

 the Classical Tripos. He had proposed to read for the Theological 

 Tripos, but his health failing, he left Cambridge and spent part of 

 the summer at Weymouth and Freshwater, when he made his first 

 acquaintance with the Tertiary fossils of the Isle of Wight ; the rest 

 of the Long Vacation was spent in Switzerland. The complete 

 change restored his health, and while abroad he accepted an offer 

 of the Mathematical Mastership at Westminster School. The 

 laborious task of teaching now had the chief claim on his attention, 

 but still left opportunities of leisure, especially during vacation, 

 which Bonney made the most of as he continued the study of 

 geology. He had now also to prepare for the Church, and was 

 ordained deacon in 1857 and priest in 1858. In 1859 he was 

 elected to a Fellowship at St. John's, and returned to that College 

 in 1861 as Junior Dean. Natural Science was then beginning to 

 secure a due recognition from the University. Up till 1861 the 

 Natural Science Tripos, which had been in existence for something 

 like sixteen years, was open only to Bachelors of Arts ; but in that 

 year it acquired equal rights, and a candidate could then obtain the 

 degree of B.A. without previously passing through the Mathematical 

 or Classical School. Of late years the candidates for this Tripos 

 have considerably exceeded in number those for either of the ancient 

 schools. The study of Natural Science received, however, but 

 slight encouragement from the Colleges, and Bonney, as soon as he 



