XXIV 



ADAM SEDGWICK, 1854-1913. 



Adam Sedgwick was born in 1854 at Norwich, where his parents were 

 temporarily residing. His father, the Eev. Eichard Sedgwick, was vicar 

 of Dent in Yorkshire, and it was there that Adam's childhood was 

 passed, and he always regarded himself as a North-countryman. His 

 father's family had been connected with the neighbourhood for many 

 generations ; they were landowners of the kind locally known as " statesmen," 

 i.e. they farmed the land which they owned. To this family belonged also 

 Adam Sedgwick, Professor of Geology in the University of Cambridge, and 

 great-uncle of the subject of this sketch. The older Adam was one of the 

 founders of British geological science, and his name is immortalised in the 

 Sedgwick Memorial Museum of Geology at Cambridge. The mother of 

 the younger Adam also belonged to a land-owning family whose seat was in 

 the neighbouring county of Lancashire, and there is no doubt that Sedgwick 

 owed many of the sterling elements in his character to this double strain of 

 country-bred ancestry. Though his studies as a scientific man led him to 

 radical views on many subjects, those who knew him best were never in any 

 doubt as to the existence of an underlying stratum of conservativism on social, 

 religious, and political matters, which formed, so to speak, the bed-rock of his 

 mind. 



Sedgwick was educated at Marlborough and entered King's College, London, 

 with a view of qualifying himself for the medical profession, but his stay there 

 was brief, and in 1874 he came up to Cambridge and entered Trinity College as 

 a pensioner. At that time there were being laid at Cambridge the foundations 

 of that school of animal biology which has brought so much fame to the 

 University, and the founders were connected with Trinity College. Michael 

 Foster had left Huxley a few years before in order to introduce the new science 

 of " biology " into the old University ; he was Prselector of Physiology and 

 Fellow of Trinity College. Amongst his first pupils was Francis Balfour, 

 later created Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College, who threw himself with 

 enthusiasm into the study of Comparative Embryology, in which he achieved 

 a world-wide fame. Adam Sedgwick early fell under the spell of this 

 brilliant genius, and soon abandoned the idea of entering the profession of 

 medicine, but took up instead the precarious occupation of a teacher of pure 

 science. In 1877 he took his degree in science with first-class honours. In 

 1878 he was made Foundation Scholar of Trinity College and he became 

 demonstrator to Balfour. 



In 1882 the University, fearful of losing Balfour, created a special Chair 

 of Animal Embryology for him ; but, in the same year, Balfour lost his life 

 on a mountain-climbing expedition in the Alps and the University declined 

 to continue his Chair. It seemed as if the newly-created School of Com- 

 parative Embryology was doomed to extinction, but after some delay the 



