lxiV PROCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I903, 



late Mr. Baker, whom he succeeded as chief engineer, in charge of 

 all new works and Parliamentary business, in January 1879. He 

 died literally in harness, after a devoted service of nearly 59 years. 

 He always took a keen interest in geology, and his geological 

 knowledge was of much service in dealing with the many important 

 schemes entrusted to his judgment. He was an ardent lover of 

 Nature, with a profound veneration for ancient and historical 

 buildings, and when designing new work he was careful so to 

 arrange his designs that they should leave, as far as practicable, 

 undisturbed any prominent or pleasing feature in the vicinity. He 

 was a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. 



The Rev. Thomas Wiltshire was born in the City of London on 

 April 21st, 1826. Ho was educated at home by a private tutor, 

 and afterwards commenced as a student at King's College, London ; 

 but at the age of 19 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where 

 he did well in classics and mathematics. Here, attending Sedgwick's 

 lectures, he acquired a taste for geology, which continued to be the 

 dominating pursuit of his Leisure-hours in after-life. He took his 

 B.A. degree with honours on January 26th, 1850, and in the 

 following June was ordained a deacon and became Curate of 

 Biddings (Derbyshire). He took his M.A. degree in July 1853, 

 and on the 18th of December of that year was ordained a priest. 



For many years he spent his summer holidays at Folkestone, 

 where he assiduously collected the fossils of the Gault and the Grey 

 Chalk, assisted in his labours by Griffith, the well-known collector. 

 In other years he stayed at Niton and Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, 

 collecting from the Hard Chalk, Chloritic Marl, and Upper Greensand 

 with Mr. Mark Norman ; or working at the Red Chalk of Hunstanton 

 with Westmoreland, the old lighthouse-keeper, or at the Chalk of 

 Filey, in Yorkshire. From these historical localities, either with 

 his own hands or aided by the local collectors, and likewise from that 

 well-known old explorer of the Upper Chalk of Bromley (Kent), 

 Jeremiah Simmonds, Mr. Wiltshire gradually accumulated a very fine 

 collection of Cretaceous fossils, which about five or six years ago he 

 presented to the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge, where they are 

 now preserved. 



In 1856 Mr. Wiltshire was elected a Fellow of the Geological 

 Society of London, and in 1859 he was elected President of the 

 newly-formed Geologists' Association, in succession to Toulmin 

 Smith, its first President. On April 4th, 1859, he read before it 



