BY D. EMBLET0N, M.D. 325 



Newcastle-upon-Tyne, three years after the formation of that 

 thoroughfare. His parents were in business there, as provision 

 merchants, on the west side, near the top of the street. When a 

 child he went to school in Pilgrim Street, under Mr. and Mrs. 

 Prowitt, whose daughters were afterwards celebrated school-mis- 

 tresses for many years. He was afterwards sent to Tanfield 

 School under his relative the Eev. Joseph Simpson, to whom 

 many Newcastle men owe the rudiments of classics and mathe- 

 matics. He left school early — at about the age of fifteen, and 

 after the death of his father, which happened in November, 1808, 

 he joined his mother in business. He had a brother, who died 

 some years ago. His amiable sister survives to deplore his loss. 



Neither his parents, nor his brother or sister, ever evinced any 

 great fondness for science. Joshua, on the other hand, never 

 liked business, though it was some years after leaving school 

 that he first became attached to scientific pursuits. 



His friends and companions about this time were Mr. T. Han- 

 cock and the late Messrs. William Hutton and George Burnett ; 

 Thomas Bewick was familiar to them all. He appears to have 

 been a lad of observation, vivacity, and humour. He was fond 

 of sketching portraits and caricatures on the kitchen walls with 

 a burnt stick, and of holding boyish dramatic performances with 

 puppets, which he manufactured chiefly himself, and for which 

 he pronounced the speeches, and thus, amidst family gatherings 

 of old and young, many a pleasant and joyous evening was spent. 

 In the prosecution of these juvenile amusements we may observe 

 the early evidence of his genial disposition, and the germs of 

 those powers of observation and delineation which gradually grew 

 up and developed themselves into talents of no mean order. 



In his after life, it may be here observed, we find a strong 

 similarity between the minds of Joshua Alder and his lamented 

 friends, the late Professor Edward Porbes, and the late William 

 Thompson, Esq., of Belfast : all three had the same genial hu- 

 mour and kindliness of disposition, the same deep-rooted love 

 for the study of Natural History, the same powers of accurate 

 and minute observation, and the same talents as trustworthy 

 draughtsmen. 



