385 



EDWARD ARTHUR LIONEL BATTERS. 



(1860-1907.) 



(with portrait.) 



The brief paragraph in the September number announcing 

 the sudden death of Mr. Edward Arthur Lionel Batters must have 

 come as a painful shock to readers of this Journal. All who had 

 the privilege of knowing him personally, of associating with him 

 in the collection of marine algae, or of hearing his views upon 

 questions of systematic distinction, must have felt that he was in 

 the prime of his mental and bodily capacities, and had still many 

 years of work and happiness before him. Stricken unsuspectedly 

 with an attack of blood-poisoning which rapidly developed, he 

 succumbed in three days, even before the danger of the case was 

 recognized. 



Born on December 26th, 1860, Mr. Batters was the fifth son 

 of Mr. George Batters, of Enfield. He was educated at King's 

 College School, London, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he 

 studied law ; he proceeded to the degrees of B.A. and LL.B., and 

 was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn. But having no taste for 

 the career of a barrister, and not being dependent upon his pro- 

 fession, he abandoned law and devoted himself largely to the study 

 of British marine alga3. Natural History had indeed always 

 attracted him even in his earliest years, as may be seen from the 

 following extract from a letter written by his aunt, a resident of 

 Berwick-on-Tweed :— " He was only seven years old when his 

 mother died. In those early years before her death she spent 

 many summers with us [at Berwick] . Her favourite haunt was 

 by the seaside, gathering seaweeds and fossils. And when too 

 young to pronounce long names, he would often find fossils and 

 know them by their indentations. He first gained his love for 

 seaw r eeds from his mother. And he began in earnest when very 

 young, on being given Mrs. Gatty's book, to search the shore 

 and cave-pools for specimens. As his father was a self-taught 

 geologist, so he was equally a self-taught algologist. His knowledge 

 was intuitive. He had no help from anyone/' Before entering 

 Cambridge University he spent two or three years with a coach at 

 Berwick-on-Tweed, thus enjoying unusual facilities for continuing 

 his study of algae. Shortly after this he made the acquaintance 

 of Mr. E. M. Holmes, who has supplied the following information 

 to the editor: — "The only man who knows Batters's early days 

 better than I do is Mr. R. I. Lynch, Curator, Botanic Garden, 

 Cambridge. It was through him that I made Batters's acquain- 

 tance. Batters went to stay with his aunt at Berwick-on-Tweed, 

 and there picked up a floating seaweed (Dasya Muelleri, if I 

 remember rightly). He tried to identify it at Cambridge, and, 

 getting no help from the botanical staff there, applied to Mr. 

 Lynch, who told him : * If anyone can help you, it is Mr. Holmes/ 

 Lynch knew me at Plymouth as an algologist before he went to 

 Cambridge. I was able to identify it ; and there sprang up an 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 45. [Novembek, 1907.] 2 f 



