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into touch with the charm of his personality will mourn his loss 
as that of a true and sincere friend.” 1 am also indebted for a 
few facts to Mr. Cosmo Melvill’s memoir in Journ. Bot., Jan. 
1925.— H. S. T. 
Mr. and Mrs. THOMAS A. COTTON. 
The fact that the late Thos. Atkinson Cotton, F.L.S., F.Z.S., 
J.P., passed away on the day that his dear wife was buried at 
Bournemouth, April 16, 1925, makes it appropriate that any 
short notices of these two kind friends of the W.B E.C. should 
be combined. Great sympathy is felt for their only daughter 
and her husband, who were both quite ill before and when this 
happened. 
Some of our present members will be unaware that Mr. 
Cotton was for about a decade the second Secretary to this Club, 
until 1899, when he asked me to take his place; and after five 
years Mr. George Goode started his long and efficient term as 
Secretary and Editor. The first Secretary was the late A. Rayney 
Waller. 
In the first Report, dated 1885, we find among the thirty -five 
members, “ Miss Spence, Holgate House, York,” — vve also find 
Arthur Bennett, F.L.S., J. W. Carr, then at Cambridge, and 
Rev. E. F. Linton in that list. And in the sixth Report T. A. 
Cotton first figures as Hon. Sec. He had already married Miss 
Charlotte Spence, daughter of the late Joseph Spence, a member 
of the Society of Friends at York, and they had removed to 
London. T. A. Cotton was born at Driffield, Yorks, in 1857, 
and met Miss Spence in connection with her Sunday School 
work at York. In the year 1893 Mr. and Mrs. Cotton bought 
“The Mount,” Bisliopstoke, Hants, a large house which was 
partly rebuilt, and surrounded with beautiful and extensive 
grounds. Here it was that less fortunate people were particularly 
welcomed, and whence sprang many philanthropic efforts. But 
after the war the Cottons took a smaller house at Highcliffe, 
Hants, and it was there that Mr. Cotton had for a considerable 
time been in a sad state of health. 
T. A. Cotton, who had a keen sense of humour, had been 
Chairman of the Eastleigh Council, a member of the Hants 
Education Committee, and a Governor of Hartley University 
College. At “The Mount” he had a fine natural history 
museum and excellent aviary ; and on leaving their home the 
vast collection was handed over to the Hants C.C., and is now 
