158 In Memoriam—fTfenry Thomas Soppitt. 
who are competent to resume and continue the work which has 
thus fallen from his hand 
Mr. Soppitt’s short life has not been an eventful one. He 
was born in Bradford on 21st June 1858. His father was an 
estimable man and a philanthropist, but not very prosperous in 
business. In his father’s trade and afterwards in a drysalter’s _ 
establishment at Halifax, Soppitt’s days were spént in earning 
his livelihood. One of his friends writes that ‘his life was only 
one long struggle with adverse circumstances ’-—that ‘he had 
a hard Tite of uncongenial toil for his daily bread.’ In some 
respects this is, no doubt, too sadly true; yet who can measure 
the happiness which he found in his chosen pursuits ? 
e early became a naturalist. In fact, all the manifestations 
of Nature were equally congenial t o him, and it was circum-_ 
stances, rather than any especial seared which made him 
chiefly a botanist. The Lepidoptera were his first love, and he. 
was a most diligent collector and student of all the moths and 
speedily became thoroughly acquainted with British flowering- 
plants. Compelled by his business to be at work during the 
daytime, he would rise early on the summer mornings and so 
get an hour or two in the fields (often in the company of the — 
present President of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, Mr. W- 
West) Bey the day’s labour began. In 1876. Soppitt joined 
the adford Naturalists’ Society; in 1880 he became its 
Uotanicat recorder, and in 1886 its President. He was for many 
As an instance of his thoroughness it may here be recorded 
that, discovering and justly appreciating the difficulty of the 
grasses and the sedges, he gave up one entire summer to them, 
studying them only in his rambles, and not meddling with other 
herbs. Then, encouraged by the persuasion of his friend, 
of the Naturalists’ Union, the late Dr. Williamson, and by 
open, almost unoccupied, field, he was led to the study of the s 
fungi, for which his great powers of observation and his 
wonderful patience and: perseverance alike fitted him. 
Soppitt did not, however, confine his diligence to the 
vegetable kingdom, for (to parody the words of Bacon) he 
may be said to have taken all natural history to be his province. 
He was well acquainted with our native shells. ‘The Land and 
Freshwater Mollusca of Upper Airedale,’ written in collaboratio 
with his friend, Mr. J. W. Carter, was published in this journal , 
and among his contributions to the Bradford Press, for which he 
: Naturalist, 
