1804-24 APPRENTICED TO LEONARD DICKSON 11 



Garter King of Arms, promised me a place in 

 Heralds' College.' In a footnote he added many 

 years after : ' Which luckily I did not get, Garter 

 dying before I was of age for such office.' 



Soon after leaving school he was apprenticed 

 to * Leonard Dickson, of Lancaster, Surgeon and 

 Apothecary,' as his indenture, dated August 11, 

 1820, shows. According to the terms of this 

 document he was to be provided by his mother 

 with ' meat, drink, washing and lodging, and 

 also decent and suitable cloathes and wear- 

 ing apparel,' and his master was on his part tp 

 teach him the ' arts, businesses, professions, 

 and mysteries of a surgeon apothecary and 

 man midwife, with every circumstance relating 

 thereto.' 



Mr. Dickson died two years after, and 

 Richard Owen was ' assigned, transferred, and 

 turned over' by the executors to Joseph Seed for 

 the term of five years, the indenture of this trans- 

 fer bearing the date of June 19, 1822. The 

 following year Mr. Seed accepted a post as 

 Surgeon in the Royal Navy, 2 and Owen was 

 again transferred, by an indenture dated Decem- 



2 It is probably from this to sea, sir? You might just 



circumstance that the idea of as well go to the devil.' The 



Owen's entering the Navy ori- Professor once assured the 



ginated. The story has been writer that this story, though 



extensively quoted and elabo- ingenious, had no foundation 



rated into an anecdote in which in fact. 

 Abernethy says to Owen, ' Going 



