MAY 21 1909 



IN MEMORIAM. 



EEV. M. J. BEEKELEY. 



N the 30th July, 1889, the Rev. M. J. Berkeley passed to his 



\J rest at the age of 86 years. Mycologists all over the world 

 would be deeply touched by the announcement. His life and 

 work and personality were so bound up with all our investigations 

 that we can scarcely realise that he has gone. 



Miles Joseph Berkeley was born at Biggin Hall, near Oundle, 

 Northamptonshire, on the 1st April, 1803. After receiving his 

 preliminary education at the Grammar School of Oundle, and at 

 Rugby, he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, of which he was a 

 scholar, in 182 1, and graduated as 5th Senior Optime in 1825. 

 He was ordained in 1826, and began his professional life as Curate 

 of St. John's, Margate, in 1829. In 1833 he became Perpetual 

 Curate of Apethorpe and Wood Newton, Northamptonshire, the 

 familiar name of King's Cliffe being that of the neighbouring vill- 

 age where he resided. In 1868 he was appointed Vicar of Sibber- 

 toft, near Market Harborough, where he died. He married in 

 1830, and is survived by most of his family. 



Those who were personally acquainted with Berkeley will recall 

 his striking presence. His tall commanding figure, in the clerical 

 dress of the older school, his grand head with flowing white hair, 

 and his massive features, lit up by an eye which combined inten- 

 sity of keenness with the tenderness of true strength, could not fail 

 to arrest the attention of the mere passer-by, while his downright 

 manliness and gentle simplicity of heart at once secured the 

 reverence and affection of his friends. His knowledge of Natural 

 Science was wide and varied. It was to the Science of Botany, 

 however, that he devoted himself chiefly ; and it was in the field 

 of Cryptogamic Botany, especially in the field of Mycology, 

 that his laurels were won. So early as the year 1836, Fries 

 wrote of him as " distinguished " above others by his investigations 

 into the structure of the hymenium, and into the nature of the 



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