162 IN MEMORIAM—CHARLES ASHFORD. 
painstaking accuracy of his letters—the choice language, the terse 
sentences tending sometimes to hide the depth of meaning that they 
contained ; who again of his friends does not cherish the memory of 
him whose constant deeds of kindness are known only to themselves? 
One who was both correspondent and friend writes of his letters that 
‘they reveal, what we who knew him continually felt, the gentleness, 
truthfulness, and beauty of his character.’ 
He was born on the 7th of January, 1829, at Baldock, Hertford- 
shire. When he was nine years of age he was sent to the Friends’ 
School at Ackworth, near Pontefract, and here he remained as 
scholar and teacher for over thirteen years. Few schools now-a-days 
turn out more naturalists than does Ackworth, but it was while Charles 
Ashford was at school that the first impetus was given to such study 
by the lessons and help of William Sewell, one of his teachers. We 
hear of him entering heartily into the games and spending a good 
deal of time in drawing, thereby no doubt obtaining that facility in 
draughtsmanship which enabled him to produce the great quantity of 
exquisite drawings of anatomical conchology which are now in the 
hands of Mr. J. W. Taylor of Leeds. "While a junior teacher in the 
school he devoted a good deal of time to Ornithology, and became 
a competent oologist: in this subject he was always interested, 
collection of birds’ eggs, was only second to his own particular hobby 
of Conchology. It was his colleague, Henry Thompson (now of 
Arnside) who led him to be interested in birds, and he says that 
‘the warm interest which Charles Ashford brought to bear upon the 
effort gave a life and force to our ornithological pursuits which 
was of great value. So it was in everything which Mr. Ashford 
undertook. 
While he was at Ackworth School there was established in the 
village of Ackworth a college—known as the Flounders Institute—to 
further the education and training of teachers in the schools of the 
Society of Friends. This college is about to be transferred to Leeds, 
where the students will have the great advantages offered at the 
Yorkshire College, but will lose those country surroundings which 
have helped no little to produce there many ardent naturalists. On 
leaving Ackworth School, Charles Ashford studied for three con- 
secutive years (1851-4) at the Flounders Institute, and here it was 
that his interest in conchology was aroused and strengthened. One 
of his fellow-students was J. W. Watson, now of Redcar, who is best 
known as joint author of Dixon and Watson’s little work on Land 
and Fresh Water Shells, which was for a long time the popular 
elementary illustrated manual on the subject ; it was at Ackworth that 
Seve er aes 
Naturalist, 
