210 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
well known and much respected among his professional brethren 
and in commercial circles, and was recently appointed advisory 
accountant to the Government in connexion with the compensa- 
tion due to railways taken under State control, and also a member 
of the Board of Referees for the assessment of excess profits. 
He acted as auditor to many of the principal financial organizations in 
this country, including the largest railways and insurance companies. 
In the United States, which he frequently visited on professional 
business, he was one of the pioneers in the establishment of the 
Accountancy Profession. He was active in the founding of branch 
offices of his firm in America, which have since extended over both the 
North and South American Continents and elsewhere. 
He was a good all-round sportsman — a good shot and a keen 
golfer, but his chief hobby was horticulture — not by any means 
Orchids only, as anyone who saw his garden and wood at Pembury 
could testify. Orchids, however, were his special interest, an interest 
aroused about 1884, when he went on a business visit to Buenos Ayres, 
whence, without knowing anything much about them, he brought 
back in his cabin two sacks full of dried sticks," as one member 
of the family called the dry and shrunken Cattleya bulbs. These 
' dry sticks " he hung up in a damp and steamy glasshouse and 
watched eagerly for the first signs of growth. Then he began to read 
about them and study them. Other Orchids followed, and then 
better houses for them, and from that time onward Orchids were 
irresistible. In his model range of Orchid-houses he possessed some 
of the finest gems of the Orchid world ; in fact, so choice was his collec- 
tion and his judgment so keen that only those of the very highest 
quality were retained ; all inferior varieties, whether hybrids or species, 
being discarded after once flowering. Under these conditions the 
standard naturally became very high. He took a keen interest in 
the cultivation of his plants, and most of his time when at home was 
spent in their midst. 
No amateur was more successful than Mr. Gurney Fowler in the 
raising of hybrids ; he had thousands of beautiful little seedlings 
raised at Brockenhurst, which, no doubt, had he been spared to see 
flower, would have given him the greatest of pleasure ; with his 
Orchids, as with all his other undertakings, thoroughness was his 
motto. He was very fond of Nature in any shape or form, but was not 
a botanist ; indeed, he was often somewhat impatient of the minutiae of 
detail and microscopic differences observed by the scientific botanist. 
In 1905 he was appointed Chairman of the Orchid Committee of 
the Society, a post he filled most worthily to the day of his death, and 
in which his passion for accuracy and uniformity had the happiest 
outlet. First, he instituted a revision of the list of awards, in which 
the names of many plants formerly used had proved to be incorrect. 
Then he separated the species from the hybrids, and by other minor 
changes arrived at the perfectly arranged list we have to-day, thanks 
to his periodical and annual revisions : a list which one of our foremost 
