Yol. 51.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OE THE PRESIDENT. Hil 



personal qualities, and thorough acquaintance with the facts of his 

 science gave him a prominent place among his fellows, and, although 

 still a young man, he was rapidly rising to honour and fame. 



It falls to the lot of but few men who have spent the greater part 

 of their lives in a provincial town to attain to so eminent a position 

 in science and become so widely known and highly esteemed as was 

 the late William. Pengelly, of Torquay. 



Though seldom present at our scientific meetings in London, he 

 was a prominent figure at the annual gatherings of the British 

 Association, in the direction of the Geological Section of which he 

 took, for many years, a very active part. 



Born at East Looe, in Cornwall (January 12th, 1812), William 

 Pengelly was the son of Richard Pengelly and Sarah, his wife 

 (nee Prout), a cousin of Samuel Prout, the well-known water-colour 

 painter. 



When quite a child he was sent to the village-school at Looe, 

 which he attended until he was 12 years of age (1824), when he 

 went to sea with his father, and never had any further instruction 

 at school or college. During the ten or more years, which then 

 followed, of his life as a sailor-lad he suffered many hardships. Once 

 all the crew were shipwrecked and rescued with difficulty, and he 

 was nearly drowned on three separate occasions — once being so long 

 immersed that animation was restored with difficulty. 



After the death of his only brother, he abandoned his seafaring 

 life, at the earnest desire of his mother, and set himself the still 

 more arduous task of self-education. How he laboured and per- 

 severed, and gradually succeeded, is seen by the sequel. Under the 

 influence of one of his mother's relatives, William Pengelly went to 

 Torquay, and, in 1836, started a school upon the Pestalozzian system, 

 the principle of which was teaching by demonstration ; the use of 

 the blackboard and chalk ; and greatest of all moral lessons — that 

 " the relation between teacher and scholar should be that of love." 

 In 1837 he established the Torquay Mechanics' Institute, in the 

 classes and lectures of which he was himself most active. 



His system of instruction was so highly appreciated, and he had so. 

 many private pupils, that after ten years (1846) he relinquished his 

 school and became a private tutor in Mathematics and Natural Science. 

 But he did not forget his early struggle for education, and estab- 

 lished a night-school for men and boys, whom he taught gratuitously, 

 for many years. As a tutor ho must have been very successful, 



vol. li. e 



