3°3 



Jit /Ifcemoriam. 



WILLIAM WEST, JUNIOR. 



Science has to mourn the loss of one of the ablest of the 

 younger generation of its votaries by the untimely and totally 

 unexpected decease of Mr. William West, junior, the son of our 

 well-known botanist, Mr. William West, F.L.S., of Bradford. 



The sad event took place on Saturday, 14th September, at 

 MozufTerpore, in India, of cholera, after he had been but a fort- 

 night at work in his capacity of Biologist to the Behar Indigo 

 Planters' Association. 



He and his brother, Mr. G. S. West, B.A., F.L.S., the well- 

 known joint-author with his father of so many valuable papers 

 on Freshwater Algae, form striking examples of hereditary family 

 ability, cultivated under the guidance and personal tuition of 

 Mr. W. West, senior, concerning whose reputation as a botanist 

 nothing needs to be said for readers of this journal. 



William West, junior, who was born at Bradford on the 

 nth of February 1875, from a very tender age displayed 

 remarkable mental ability. I myself remember well how 

 familiar he was with abstruse works, such as the Nautical 

 Almanack, systematic botanical works, etc., when but a very 

 small boy. His educational career is only to be described as 

 brilliant. At ten years of age, unknown even to his parents, he 

 won a scholarship at the Bradford Technical College, and he 

 afterwards passed brilliantly through the Royal College of 

 Science in London, where he gained the Forbes Medal for 

 botany. At 16 he won a foundation scholarship at St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, where he eventually took the highest 

 honours in the Natural Science Tripos. After taking his B.A. 

 degree he first acted as a science demonstrator at Cambridge, 

 and afterwards — for some years worked as an extra assistant 

 in the Natural History Museum at" South Kensington. He left 

 England on the 8th August of this year to take up the appoint- 

 ment in which he died in harness. 



Scientifically he was a botanist, and an accomplished, well- 

 read, and well-trained one, thanks to his father's sound teaching 

 and his own great natural ability. His botanical acumen was so 

 well developed that at the early age of 14 he was able to set 

 the British Museum curators right as to the determination of an 

 obscure Elatine displayed in the public galleries. 



He was not a prodigal writer, and this journal was the 

 medium in which many of his botanical notes and papers 



1901 October 1. 



