246 



Society in November 1808; and subsequently he constructed another 

 with much larger plates, the performance of which is fully detailed 

 in a second paper read to the Society in June 1815. Both these 

 papers are printed in the Philosophical Transactions. 



Between the date of these papers he made a long journey in Spain, 

 and visited the quicksilver mines of Almaden, with which English- 

 men were at that time very imperfectly acquainted. On his return 

 to England in 1809 he married the eldest daughter of George 

 Furlong Wise, Esq., of Woolston in Devonshire, but he again expe- 

 rienced the heaviest of all domestic calamities by losing her within 

 eight months of their marriage. After her death in 1810, he con- 

 tinued to reside chiefly with his father at Tunbridge until the year 

 1816, when, in consequence of the failure of the Tunbridge Bank, 

 in which his father was a partner, his prospects in life were wholly 

 altered, and he found it necessary to seek some remunerative employ- 

 ment that might enable him to contribute to the comfort of his 

 revered and now aged parent. He succeeded, through the kindness 

 of the late Marquis of Camden, in obtaining the situation of one of 

 the librarians of theBritish Museum, in the department of Antiquities. 

 He still retained his love for chemistry, and a little before his 

 appointment to the Museum, he had warmly espoused the cause of 

 his friend Sir H. D&yj, in a controversy respecting the safety lamp ; 

 a paper relating to which will be found in the Philosophical Maga- 

 zine for 1816. 



After his father's death Mr. Children married the widow of the 

 Rev. Johnson Towers, and removed fi'om Chelsea to the British 

 Museum, in which establishment he had an official residence. It is 

 worthy of mention, that after he had been for some years an officer 

 of the Museum, his post was changed without his own solicitation 

 from the Department of Antiquities to that of Natural History. 



In 1826 Mr. Children was elected Secretary of the Royal Society 

 in the place of Mr. Brande. He resigned in 1827, but was re-elected 

 in 1830, and remained in office until 1837, when his delicate health 

 obliged him to relinquish it. This honourable position was rendered 

 particularly agreeable to him by the regard and kindness of his col- 

 leagues, and of th% Presidents under whom he acted ; and his zeal for 

 the interests of the Society is commemorated by the unanimous 

 thanks of the Societ}^ having been given to him in 1835, for " the 

 zeal and ability which he uniformly displa3"ed, and the many valu- 

 able services he rendered in promoting the objects of the Society." 



On his retirement from office in Nov. 1837, the President, then 

 the Duke of Sussex, in his Anniversary Address, alluded in a very 

 marked and complimentary manner to Mr. Children's services as 

 Secretary, and lamented that the Society would no longer have the 

 benefit of those services. 



At this period of his life Mr. Children was a member of most of 

 the scientific bodies of Great Britain, and of some foreign societies, 

 and he was very instrumental in the formation of the present Ento- 

 mological Society, and became its first president. 



He published two chemical works, one a translation of ' Thenard's 



