48 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



obedient children. There are various tales of the pranks 

 and exploits of the four sons, but probably other families 

 of active boys have done much the same. 



Isaac was educated first at a boarding- school at 

 Kendal, and then went for a couple of years to the 

 Friends' School at Bootham, York, where his uncle, the 

 father of Professor Silvanus Thompson, was one of the 

 masters. There, probably, his love of Natural History 

 received a fresh impetus, this school having always given 

 considerable attention to the study of science. An old 

 schoolfellow, now Dr. Nicholson, of Clifton, writes : " His 

 chief characteristic was his enthusiasm for everything he 

 put his hand to. I recollect how he put life into the 

 Natural History Society when he became secretary. He 

 seemed to me to have a special bent towards Natural 

 History when I knew him so well." He left York in 

 consequence of a severe illness, and afterwards finished 

 his education at the Liverpool Institute. 



In the meantime his father had established the 

 business of homoeopathic chemist, and on leaving school, 

 in 1858, he was apprenticed to the firm of " Thompson and 

 Capper," in which he afterwards became a partner. In 

 the early sixties he attended classes in science at the 

 Liverpool Royal Infirmary School of Medicine, which 

 afterwards became the Medical Faculty of University 

 College. Amongst his teachers at that time were Dr. 

 Cuthbert Collingwood (Natural History), Dr. Nevins 

 (Botany), and Dr. Birkenhead (Chemistry) ; and Thompson, 

 we know, distinguished himself, amongst other subjects, 

 by his attainments in Botany, and was indefatigable in 

 the formation of a large herbarium of local plants, for 

 which he obtained a special prize. The search for rare 

 specimens led him to explore minutely the district around 

 Liverpool; and it was then ho took the longer walks in 



