106 president's address. 



previous to holding my present office, although I have heen an 

 unworthy member of your Club for the last twenty years, I can 

 truly say, at +he close of my year of office, that the impression 

 left on my mind is most pleasant and agreeable ; but not unmixed 

 with regret that, owing to my distance from Newcastle, I was 

 not able to be present more frequently. It is a disadvantage to 

 your President when he resides so far from the Central Station, 

 as to be obliged, if he would attend the Field Meetings, in many 

 cases to leave home the day before. The past year, as was to be 

 expected, has not passed away without both its losses and its 

 gains. It does not become one who had not the honour of his 

 acquaintance to do more than allude to the great loss which 

 science in general, and Newcastle in particular, has sustained 

 by the lamented death of Mr. Hancock. His scientific attain- 

 ments have been acknowledged and done justice to by others far 

 better qualified to speak of them than I am, and I sincerely trust 

 that the plan for the establishment in Newcastle of some suitable 

 and honourable memorial of Mr. Hancock's labours may be suc- 

 cessfully and speedily carried out by his fellow-townsmen and all 

 those interested in scientific investigations. 



I beg also to be permitted to refer, and with sorrow, to the 

 death of a member of your Club, known possibly to some who 

 are present, Mr. James "Ward, formerly of Richmond, in York- 

 shire, but who died last year, at the age of seventy, at RedclifTe 

 House, Barton on Irwell, near Manchester. There were few 

 botanists in the North of England so well acquainted with the 

 British plants as Mr. Ward. He had been, as I can testify, for 

 more than fifty years a persevering student, and no department 

 of British botany was neglected by him. He attacked and mas- 

 tered, too, all the more intricate genera. His knowledge of the 

 Carices, JRubi, Roses, and Hieracia, was profound. His large 

 collections will I trust find their way to some public institution ; 

 for his great exactness made all specimens named by him valuable 

 as authentic. A large herbarium, mainly due to his exertions, 

 the specimens being named or verified by him, and containing 

 not much under one thousand species and varieties, collected in 



