XIV 



John Gwtn Jeffreys was born on the 18th of January, 1809, at 

 Swansea, where his great grandfather, his grandfather, and his 

 father had successively practised as solicitors. His father, who had 

 occupied a leading position in the town, died in 1815, leaving four 

 young children, of whom, the subject of this notice was the eldest. 

 He received the chief part of his education at the Swansea Grammar 

 School, in which he finally attained the place of " head boy," after a 

 long competition with his rival. Having early begun to collect shells 

 on the shore of Swansea Bay, and having been encouraged in the 

 study of Conchology by Mr. Griffiths (Master of the Grammar School), 

 Mr. Dillwyn, and other friends, he thenceforth made it a regular 

 pursuit, at first as a recreation, and in later years as his chief occupa- 

 tion. Articled at the age of seventeen to one of the principal 

 solicitors of his native town, he laboured diligently at his law studies, 

 but devoted his autumnal holidays to dredging along the coast. In 

 1829, when only nineteen years of age, he presented to the Linneean 

 Society a " Synopsis of the Pulmonobranchous Mollusca of Great 

 Britain," which was published in its Transactions ; and in the follow- 

 ing year he was elected a Fellow. In 1836 he attended the meeting 

 of the British Association at Bristol;* and there first met Edward 

 Forbes, with whom he afterwards formed an intimate friendship, which 

 became valuable to both. For while Gwyn Jeffreys made many im- 

 portant contributions to Forbes and Hanley's classical work on the 

 British Mollusca, his own scientific horizon was enlarged by inter- 

 course with the most philosophic and far-seeing British naturalist of 

 his time. Gwyn Jeffreys continued for many years to be one of the 

 most constant attendants at the Annual Meetings of the Association ; 

 serving as Local Treasurer at its first meeting at Swansea in 1848, as 

 President of the Biological Section at its Plymouth meeting in 1877, 

 and as Vice-President of the Association at its second meeting at 

 Swansea in 1880. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1840, and served on its Council in the years 1869 — 1871. 



Having entered into an advantageous partnership as a solicitor in 

 Swansea, and married a daughter of R. J. Nevill, Esq., of Llangennech 

 Park, Carmarthenshire, he applied himself assiduously to the busi- 

 ness of his profession ; but still carried on his conchological researches 

 by systematic dredging during his vacations, at first in a row-boat, 

 but afterwards in a yacht, which he purchased for the purpose of 

 extending his explorations to the northern part of the British seas, 



* This Bristol meeting was also the first attended by the writer of this notice, 

 who believes that he is now the only scientific representative of the large gathering 

 there assembled. In that gathering his old fellow-student, Edward Forbe3, was 

 always personally conspicuous, the question being continually asked, " Who is the 

 philosopher with the long hair?" 



