The late Mr. H. M. Jenkins. 
169 
all, and once more the task of the biographer has been com- 
mitted to my hands. There is no such special fitness now. I 
had opposed his original appointment to the offices which he 
has held with such signal advantage and ability ; and I know 
that for years he imagined that scant justice was dealt out to 
him in the weekly journal which I edited. Nor can it be said 
that the biographer has in this case had that intimacy of asso- 
ciation with either the Secretary or the Society he served, which 
seems to be required. 1 have had no opportunity of witness- 
ing daily, or from week to week, either the spirit or the method 
of his official life. His enthusiasm for its duties — his promp- 
titude and system in the discharge of them — his constant 
eagerness of outlook over the great Agricultural field — his share 
in the guidance of the Society to one and another of the points 
in that field on which, as its officer, he has worked : — all these 
are known to me only by their results. The vigour of the 
annual volume, and the growth of the annual Show, and the 
great reputation of the Society both at home and abroad — the 
outside belief everywhere in its readiness to help, whatever 
the agricultural need might be : these, which are among the 
results, are more intimately known by many to whom the record 
of them might have been more fitly committed. The family, 
and friends, and the members of the great Society of which our 
late friend was Secretary may, however, be assured that no one 
could bring to the duty which has been confided to me a keener 
sense of the great loss we have all sustained, a more earnest 
desire to do justice to the example of his career, or a warmer 
loyalty to his memory. 
The following is a bare outline of the story up to the time 
when Mr. Jenkins joined the Royal Agricultural Society. 
Henry Michael Jenkins was born at Fairwater Cottage, Ely 
Mills, Llandaff, Glamorganshire, on June 30th, 1840. His 
father, John Jenkins, was one of two brothers, millers and corn 
merchants, at Organford, near Wareham, Dorsetshire, whose 
family had formerly been farmers of their own property near 
Shaftesbury. Having business relations with Mr. L. Michael, 
flour merchant, of Swansea, John Jenkins in the course of time 
became acquainted with his family, and ultimately married his 
eldest daughter. Leaving Organford soon after his marriage, 
he became the owner of Ely Mills, Llandaff. Henry was 
the eldest of his children ; one daughter is now the only sur- 
vivor, and there was a posthumous son, the father having died 
at twenty-seven years of age. Mrs. Jenkins resided at Swansea 
during the five years succeeding her widowhood, and then 
married Mr. E. L. Eox, a seed and corn merchant of Bristol. 
