144 
DEATH OF THE DEAN OF MANCHESTER. 
We deeply regret having this month to record the unexpected death of the Hon. and Rev. W. 
Herbert, Dean of Manchester, which took place suddenly at one o'clock on Friday, May 28th, at 
his house in Hereford Street, Park Lane, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. His health had been 
declining for the last two years, and latterly he had been obliged to have medical attendance. 
On the morning of his decease he appeared better than usual, and went out, but in about a quarter 
of an hour after his return home, he suddenly fell back in his chair, and expired almost 
immediately. 
To Botany and Horticulture this highly talented and excellent gentleman was most ardently 
devoted. " To wonderful perseverance, untiring zeal, and much manual dexterity, he added a 
vigour of intellect and power of perception that have rarely been surpassed. None, except those 
who enjoyed the honour of his intimate acquaintance, can imagine the enthusiasm with which he 
prosecuted his favourite studies. The £ Botanical Magazine ' and e Register ' received from him 
frequent communications. His greatest work in this line, the ' Amaryllidacece? accompanied 
with a treatise on hybrid intermixtures, was published in the year 1837. And such leisure as 
remained to him in the succeeding years of his connexion with a great manufacturing city, and of 
declining strength, was employed on the Iridacece. In this work, (which, had longer time or better 
health been granted to him, would have been as complete as the former,) a progress has been 
made which may probably be thought sufficient to render its publication acceptable to the 
naturalists of this and other countries. A foretaste of this work appeared in his e Crocorum 
Synopsis,'' in the ' Miscellanea' to the e Bot. Reg.' for 1843, 1844, and 1845. 
"Mr. Herbert was, beyond all other persons, instrumental in establishing and rendering 
popular the botanical theory of hybridization among plants ; as he was also among the earliest, 
and one of the most eminently successful, of those who applied it to Horticultural practice. 
Upon the phenomena of hybrid intermixture he mainly founded those conclusions at which he 
arrived concerning natural classification, and the doctrine of genus and species. They will be 
found embodied in an essay on Hybridization amongst Vegetables, which has been published in 
the Journal of the Horticultural Society ; and which constitutes a rich mine of valuable facts and 
not less valuable reasoning." 
