269 

 Memoir of the late George Tate, F.G.S. By Robert 



MlDDLEMAS. 



It has been the custom of the Berwickshire Club to place on 

 record notices of the lives of those members, whom death has 

 removed ; and, had this not been so, the Club could not 

 have overlooked the merits of George Tate, who for a 

 period of thirteen years discharged the duties of Secretary 

 in such a manner as repeatedly called forth the warmest 

 commendations of the Club. Since the death of Dr John- 

 ston, no more honoured and active member has fallen than 

 Mr Tate ; who, at the last annual meeting was in his 

 place, joyous as ever, cheering us on by his example, and 

 arranging for the year which closes to-day. When I was 

 asked by several members to prepare a sketch of his life, I 

 felt a difficulty in complying, and wished the pen to be taken 

 by an abler hand. I, however, saw that I was fixed upon, 

 as a friend of Mr Tate ; and, when I considered that it was a 

 debt of gratitude I owed for a friendship of above twenty 

 years, I no longer hesitated, but endeavoured to discharge 

 the debt. 



Ralph Tate, a builder, and a freeman of Alnwick, married 

 Rachel Turner, a descendant of an old Alnwick family, 

 whose principal members had been freemen of the borough 

 for generations. They had two sons : George Tate, and 

 Thomas Turner Tate, both of whom distinguished them- 

 selves in different walks of life. 



George Tate was born on the 21st day of May, 1805. He 

 received his elementary education in the Borough School, at 

 Alnwick, then under the care of George Dixon, a severe but 

 able teacher. He passed afterwards to the Grammar School, 

 where he completed his education under the judicious care 

 of the Rev. William Procter, an amiable man and an able 

 scholar, whose worth is commemorated in Alnwick by a 

 memorial window, placed by public subscription in St. 

 Michael's Church, of which he was the incumbent. 



Mr Tate was apprenticed to Mr Thomas Riddell, a draper, 

 in the Market Place, Alnwick. He was a diligent, active 

 apprentice, and very studious. Even at this early age, we find 

 him and his brother members of a debating society, then at- 

 tended by a few intellectual young men ; and perhaps it was 

 at these friendly contests, that Mr Tate first learned to 



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