xii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



One wonders what answer was sent, and whether Darwin was aware that 

 his correspondent was a boy of eighteen. 



A couple of years later appeared the " Flora of the West Riding " by Miall 

 and Carrington, with an introduction by Louis Miall, which he repented in 

 later years ; for, though it has merits, it is written in a rather high-flown 

 style, and to publish a list of plants and their localities was quite contrary 

 to his maturer teaching. 



Besides the difficulty of studying without teachers, there was another draw- 

 back to the life that he was leading at this time. His father was strong-willed 

 and autocratic, and Louis' own strong will was frequently at variance with 

 his in the management of the little school. The young man's scientific 

 studies, and the spirit of the age when Darwin and Huxley were fighting for 

 freedom of belief, soon brought religious disagreement into the family circle 

 and Louis' change of faith was a great grief to his parents. It hit his father 

 on all sides, as parent, schoolmaster and minister, and he felt it very bitterly. 

 Altogether the life was neither happy nor hopeful, and the young man decided 

 that it could not continue. He would find work elsewhere, and eventually 

 he took a post as assistant-master in a school kept by Mr. G-eorge Todd at 

 Stamford Hill, near London. 



Towards the end of the second year there the situation was changed by 

 a letter from his brother Philip, telling him that a Philosophical Society 

 was being started in Bradford, and that Philip was commissioned to write 

 and offer him the post of Secretary to the Society with a salary of £100 a 

 year. This was just what he wanted. He wrote an immediate acceptance 

 and gave notice to leave the school at the earliest moment possible. 



This was the turning point in Louis Miall's career. After six or seven 

 years of gradually increasing darkness and discouragement, the horizon 

 ■cleared, and henceforth he advanced without faltering. When he returned 

 to Bradford he was very raw and inexperienced and had little idea what to 

 make of his new task. The first thing he had to do was to arrange a 

 course of lectures, under the guidance of the Committee, who soon left all 

 the correspondence in his hands. An interesting course of lectures was 

 given between 1865 and 1871, among others by Owen, Huxley and Eolleston, 

 who thus came into personal contact with the Secretary of the Bradford 

 Philosophical Society. 



Another thing to which the Secretary had to turn his attention was the 

 making of a museum from a collection of objects mostly given by people 

 who wanted to get rid of them. He finally decided that the only thing he 

 could do was to make a collection of geological specimens for which the 

 neighbourhood offered unusual facilities. He prepared a report to the 

 Committee, in which he offered to collect what he could from the coalfields 

 and limestone districts within reach. For some years it was his delightful 

 hobby to explore the district of Craven, to study its geology and to 

 collect its fossils. A frequent companion of his on these rambles was 

 John Brigg, afterwards Sir John Brigg, M.P. for Keighley, a member of his 



