Annual Report of the Council. 113 



William Crawford Williamson's early life was there- 

 fore strongly influenced by his father's tastes and 

 friendship with William Smith, John Phillips, and 

 William Bean ; but young Williamson had his own 

 way to make in life. After spending some years at 

 school in Yorkshire and in France, he was apprenticed 

 in his sixteenth year to a Scarborough surgeon, Mr. 

 Thomas Weddell, with whom he remained from April, 

 1832, to September, 1835, when he removed to Man- 

 chester. The versatility and indomitable energy of 

 Williamson were exhibited during the drudgery of his 

 apprenticeship, for in that period of his life, as recorded 

 in the scientific journals of the day, he wrote at least 

 four papers, each of which represented a different line 

 of study. Conchology was illustrated by "A notice of 

 the localities, habits, characteristics, and synonyms of a 

 rare British species of Mytilns," published in 1834, in the 

 Magazine of Natural History, Vol. VII. Geology was 

 represented in the same year by a paper published in the 

 second volume of the Proceedings of the Geological Society, 

 as well as by the contributions he made to the Fossil 

 Flora of Lindley and Hutton. Archaeology also attracted 

 him, as about this time he published his first and last 

 paper in this field, viz., "A memoir on the contents of the 

 celebrated tumulus at Gristhorpe," which was reprinted 

 during his later years. Ornithology, too, was closely 

 studied during his apprenticeship, as he published, in 

 1836, in Vol. IV. of the Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society, "Notes on the appearance of rare birds in the 

 vicinity of Scarborough." This range of research was 

 remarkable for so young an investigator; but it prepared. 

 him for the office which introduced him to the activities 

 of Manchester life, viz., the curatorship of the Museum of 

 the Manchester Natural History Society, in the building 

 in Peter Street now occupied by the Young Men's 



