35S 



OBITUARY NOTICE. 



R. D. DARBISHIRE. 



Hv lAMES COSMO MELVILL, M.A., D.Si 



(Read before the Society, Maicli loili, igoj). 



(With FRONTisriKCF.). 



During tlie early morning hours of Sunday, November Sth, 1908, 

 Robert Dukinfield Darbishire passed away, after a very short iUness, 

 at his residence, High Ehns, Victoria Park, Manchester. Born in 

 1826, he had entered upon his eighty-third year; and thus, there has 

 been removed from our midst a strong and many-sided personality, 

 endued with a singleness of heart ever directed towards the public 

 good, ever unselfish, always esteeming the interests of others more 

 than his own. 



He has left us, but his memory will remain and flourish long, 

 especially in that large and busy city with which he was identified 

 from his birth, being the son of Mr. Samuel Dukinfield Darbishire, 

 a solicitor in large practice, of Manchester and Penmaenmawr, 

 North Wales, whose profession he ultimately followed. 



When quite young, he was placed under the care of Mr. Merz, a 

 man of enlightened and remarkably progressive views residing at 

 Chorlton-on-Medlock, then to some extent a rural suburb. The 

 influence of this teaching remained through life. Subsequently he 

 was educated at Manchester New College, and finally graduated 

 B.A. at the London University. 



His parents belonging to the Unitarian body, he was at once 

 brought into contact with many gifted and highly intellectual people, 

 scions hkewise of that persuasion, the names of Gaskell, Herford, 

 Philips, and Martineau occurring to one at once. 



Wo have mentioned Mr. Darbishire as many-sided, and it is, 

 indeed, difticult to single out, during a long life of so much activity, 

 any one particular leaning or characteristic bent as absolutely pre- 

 dominant ; but, when the great opportunity of his life arrived, and 

 he was appointed by Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887) in company 

 with Mr. Richard Copley Christie (formerly Chancellor of the See of 

 Manchester) and L.ady Whitworth, administrator of an estate valued 

 at over one-million-and-a-quarter sterling, the principal of which was 

 entirely devised to the three executors to be laid out and expended 

 at their unfettered discretion for the best public advanta^^e, he exhi- 

 bited a strong leaning towards the betterment of those doomed to 

 live in congested surroundings, by providing open-air spaces, parks, 



