[ JViih the Cotnplimefits of the Spen Valley Literary and Scientific 
Society^ and the Heckmondwike Naturalists' Society, \ 
Jubilee of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union. 
The occasion which we are now celebrating is of peculiar interest, inasmuch 
:as the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union this year meets in th© place where it was 
originally founded fifty years ago ; and the interest is the greater when it is borne 
in mind tliat we also celebrate the somewhat obscure beginnings of the Natural 
■History investigation of our County. 
The actual beginning was that of I)r, Martin Lister, of York, whose " Historia 
Animalium Angliio of 1678, includes the first systematic accounts of the molluscs, 
spiders and fossils of our county, and whose proposals for a table of soils was the 
earliest suggestion of geological maps. After this nothing was done till James 
Bolton, of Halifax, published his excellent works on Fungi and Ferns, about the 
close of the eighteenth century. 
The later revival, of which our own work is the direct and uninterrupted 
■continuation, is due to the labours of numerous artisan naturalists on both tlanks of 
the Pennine Range of hills, particularly around Manchester on the Western slope, 
and on the Eastern slope in the neighbourhood of Hudderstield, Halifax, Hebden 
Bridge, Heckmondwike, Wakefield, Barnsley, and later on as far West as Bradford 
and Leeds. 
Amongst these unobtrusive workers were not a few keen enthusiasts whose 
labours and sacrifices in the cause of natural science, rendered their careers as worthy 
•of sympathetic biography as any of those who have been immortalized by the pen 
cf Dr. Samuel Smiles ; and as he was at one time resident in Leeds and Editor of 
the "I>eeds Times," it is possibly by the merest accident that one or other of these 
West Riding pioneers did not hapjien to be one of his subjects. 
Of these men we may at random mention such names as Samuel Gibson, of 
Hebden Bridge, James Varley, John Armitage, John Bartlam, and Joseph Tindall 
of HuddersHeld, Richard Jessop of Lascelles Hall, E, Taylor of Dalton, Cains 
Cassius Hanson of Greetland, Roger Earnshaw of Ovenden, Thomas Lister of 
Barnsley, George Roberts of Lofthouse, William Talbot and Joseph Wilcock of 
Wakefield, William Liversedge, William Nelson and Charles Smethurst of Leeds, 
as a few of those who made the success of the local societies which sprang up 
in the towns, villages and hamlets of South west ^'orkshire. 
Huddersfield was the chief centre and the radiant point, and the foundation 
of the Huddersfield Naturalists' Society in 1847 gives that town an honourable 
position in the natural history annals of Yorkshire ; and never since has that 
town and district lacked a succession of able, zealous, and enthusiastic naturalists 
to keep alive in our midst the love of outdoor nature. 
The principle of federation, of which the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union has 
been one of the most striking examples in the kingdom, was not long in following 
the establishment of local Societies; and in September 1861 a largely attended 
•gathering of Naturalists took place at Heckmondwike to celebrate the first meeting 
■of a local society wiiich had been established then a few^ weeks before. 
At this meeting, at which were present representatives from Huddersfield, 
Halifax, Wakefield, and Heckmondwike, Mr. William Talbot of Wakefield 
introduced a discussion on the advisability of more combined and organized 
intercourse among the Societies, and pointed out the mutual benefits which 
would accrue. He was warmly supported, and on his motion it was unanimously 
resolved to form a Union of Societies for the purpose of holding joint meetings 
periodically at the various places where Societies had already been established. 
