108 Henry Riddell on 



It is therefore at the request of the Council of the Society 

 that I have this evening to give you an account, necessarily 

 imperfect, of Dr. Andrews and his work. There are many reasons 

 for our interest in Andrews. He was a fellow townsman, a 

 prominent and greatly respected member of our Society, of which 

 he was President 1854 — 1856, and a scientific investigator whose 

 name and work are known wherever Science is esteemed. To 

 me he was the valued and venerated teacher for whom I had 

 unbounded admiration and aflfection. And not least upon our 

 list, by his kind and generous heart, his care for the feelings and 

 interest of others, and his sincere and upright life, he earned the 

 grand title of an honourable and Christian gentleman. 



Thomas Andrews was born on 19th December, 1813, at 

 3 Donegall Square South, and lived there as a boy and as a man 

 until his transfer to the building erected for him in this College 

 grounds in 1845. In those days the square around the Old Linen 

 Hall was almost wholly residential. Next door to the Andrews 

 family for years dwelt Mr. Bristow, a well-known solicitor of the 

 town, the Bristow name being still familiar in Belfast and on the 

 roll of our Society. Other residents there were Charles Lanyon, 

 the Architect of this College, and a member of our Society, 

 John Workman, whose descendants to the third and fourth 

 generation are now among our members, and John Sinclair, of 

 the firm of J. & T. Sinclair, a name best remepibered among us 

 in the person of the late Eight Hon. Thomas Sinclair, a dis- 

 tinguished Graduate of this College and a man much loved and 

 respected in the City of Belfast. 



The Andrews family, then as now, were closely connected 

 with the mercantile life of the town, and are to-day represented 

 by the Flax Spinners of Comber and the Flour Millers of Belfast, 

 while the name of Michael Andrews, of Ardoyne, is ever famous 

 in the history of the Linen Trade, in which the family is still 

 concerned. Thomas Andrews' grandfather, Michael Andrews, 

 was the eldest son of John Andrews of Comber, and his father, 

 also Thomas, was in business in Belfast as a linen merchant. 



