MEMOIR OP MR. W. C. SEWITSON, F.L.S. 223 



XIII.— Memoir of the Life of Mr. W. C. JSewitson, F.L.S. By 

 Dennis Embleton, M.D. With Portrait. 



Mr. William Chapman Hewitson was born in Percy Street, 

 I^ewcastle-npon-Tyne, in a house opposite the Haymarket, now 

 converted into a circus, on January 9th, 1806, and died at Oat- 

 lands, near Walton- on-Thames, Surrey, on May 28th, 1878. 



His father, Middleton Hewitson, Esq., was a gentleman in 

 independent circumstances, but without any bias to scientific 

 pursuits. He died at Tynemouth. The family consisted of five 

 sons, of whom the subject of this memoir was the second, and 

 one daughter ; all are now dead. 



The early education of William Hewitson was begun at Kirkby 

 Stephen, Westmorland, and finished at York; probably under 

 the care of the Eev. Mr. Graham. How far his studies were 

 prosecuted is not known; he probably obtained the ordinary edu- 

 cation given at a grammar school of the period. 



He often visited his uncles, Mr. Henry Hewitson of Seaton 

 Burn, and Mr. Joshua Hewitson, of Heckley, near Alnwick. 



Soon after his return fi'om school he was articled to Mr. John 

 Tuke, land surveyor, of York, and. during his apprenticeship be- 

 came acquainted with Mr. afterwards Professor Phillips, whom 

 he frequently accompanied in their common Entomological excur- 

 sions. How long he remained at York is not known, but he was 

 residing there in 1828. In 1831 he was living in his native 

 town, and practising his profession of a land surveyor. It was 

 in April of that year that the first part of his British Oology 

 appeared, the last of which was published June 1st, 1838. 



Erom letters in the possession of Mr. John Hancock, we find 

 that in 1838 he was at Bristol with the Messrs. Sturges, land 

 surveyors, by whom he was employed in the survey of the coun- 

 try for the line of railway between Bristol and Exeter. 



On this occasion he himself writes that *' they worked day and 

 night, Sundays and week days," and the reason was as follows : 

 The landed proprietors being then much against the pi-ogress of 

 railways, did all in their power to prevent the works being car- 

 ried on ; in consequence, much of the levelling had to be done 



