Sn BWemoriam. 
THOMAS HICK, B.A, B.Sc, ALS. 
Born 5TH May, 1840; Diep 31st JULY, 1896. 
Any retrospect I may attempt of a life of fifty-six years so remarkable 
in its lesson as a triumph of mind over matter—though the subject 
of it called himself a materialist very nearly, if not quite, to the 
last—must be inadequate ; for, though I am almost the one oldest 
scientific friend of his left—Prof. W. C. Williamson, Dr. Spruce, 
James Abbott, and James W. Davis, all no more !—I only knew 
Thomas Hick at all intimately, or saw him constantly, during the 
lustrum 1868 to 1873. I moved about much after that, whilst he, 
leaving Leeds for Harrogate, where he resided up to 1885, then 
migrated to Manchester upon his obtaining the Assistant-Lecturer- 
ship in Botany at Owens, under Williamson. For a civilian his was 
a battleful life, full beyond the average in controversial effort and 
strenuous inquiry. As a biologist, where Huxley led he followed; 
the method, fidelity to truth, fearlessness in experiment and con- 
troversy of that Wellington in the esoteric fields of Cosmos, ever 
evoking his profoundest admiration and faith. 
As a boy, of humble but respectable parentage, Hick was 
originally destined for manual labour ; but what one may be forgiven 
for calling a lucky accident in the mill where he first went to work 
involved an injury to his left hand and loss of some fingers. This 
led him to become a pupil, a teacher, and eventually head master of 
the Lancasterian School at Leeds. When I first knew him he was 
studying, with more or less definite ideas, for the Degrees he 
afterwards attained. Science-teaching in schools was then coming 
to the front as a necessary in the curriculum of middle-class 
education ; and in the late sixties and early seventies he upheld the 
anner of nature-study by giving to others in night-classes at the 
Leeds Mechanics, at Bradford, and elsewhere, a sufficiency of that 
knowledge on plant life which a more spontaneous curiosity and 
enthusiasm had led him to seek after for himself. Much of the 
best work of his life was done in this way, infecting others by his 
force of character and graphic aptitude in expressing what he knew ; 
before he had accomplished any of what it is the custom to style 
‘original’ investigation—definite little secrets wormed by tireless 
Observation from the Grand Arcana of Life. 
Awakening interest in botany, for my early love like that of 
many another youth (Hick being seven years my senior) was 
Entomology and ornithology, first brought me into contact with him 
March 1897, F 
