Sir William Henry Poiver. 



vu 



migratory habits of birds, concerning his observations of which he had kept 

 records from 1858 onwards. 



With his brother, Mr. F. D. Power, he gathered together the greater portion 

 of a collection commenced by his father in 1840 and now housed by his cousin, 

 Mr. Charles Cowper Mee, at Oldbury Hall, near Atherstone, Warwickshire, 

 which includes no less than 250 groups of specimens of British birds. But lie 

 had no love for the mere annexation of specimens, and, equally, no sympathy 

 with those who by indiscriminate shooting frightened birds away, and so 

 disturbed the observations on which he was engaged. Among the specimens 

 contributed to the collection by Power between the years 1862 and 1916, of which 

 many were prepared by himself, certain specially rare examples, including a 

 female hen harrier (Falco cijaiuvji) shot November, 1864 ; a merlin {Falco 

 cesalmi) shot in Kent, November, 1881 ; a specimen of a glaucus gull (Lams ' 

 glaucus) captured at Stiffkey, Norfolk, November, 1887 ; and a garganey (Anas 

 querquedida) shot, December, 1887, may be of interest to ornithologists. 



Towards the end of his life, when physically incapacitated by illness, he 

 still derived much pleasure from observing, with the aid of field glasses, and 

 making notes as to the movements of birds that he could see from his garden 

 at Molesey — swifts, swallows, martins, sand-martins, blackbirds, thrushes, 

 willow-wrens, various tits and the black-headed gulls passing to and fro from 

 Molesey Keservoir. 



On the retirement of Sir George Buchanan in 1892, Power became 

 First Assistant Medical Officer to the Local Government Board, succeeding 

 to the post of Principal Medical Officer eiglit years later, on the death of 

 Sir Eichard Thorne. 



In 1904, during his tenure of office as head of the Medical Service of the 

 State, the Food Department was estaljlished on his initiative. He had long 

 foreseen the value and importance to the country of the work possible of 

 accomplishment as the result of such an expansion of the energies of the 

 department under his control, and it will be generally admitted that his 

 prevision has been amply justified, more particularly during the present war. 



While Medical Officer to the Local Government Board, he also served, as 

 Crown nominee, on the General Council of Medical Education, on the 

 Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal, and on the Eoyal Commission on 

 Tuberculosis, of which he subsequently became Chairman on the death of 

 Sir Michael Foster. 



He received the C.B. in 1902 and the K.C.B. in 1908, on retirement, at 

 the official age limit. He was elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 

 1895, and in 1907 was awarded the Buchanan Medal. Other honours 

 awarded him include the Jenner Medal of the Epidemiological Society, the 

 Bisset-Hawkins Medal of the Eoyal College of Physicians of London, the 

 Stewart Prize of the British Medical Association, the Honorary Fellowship 

 of the Eoyal College of Surgeons of England, and the Freedom of the 

 Apothecaries Company. 



Power will perhaps be best remembered for the somewhat imique faculty 



