10 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
II. — Notices of Fellows, Honorary and Ordinary, 
recently deceased. 
[Contributed by Mrs Bon avia-Hunt.] 
Henry George Bonavia-Hunt, Mus.D., was born in Malta under 
somewhat romantic circumstances. His father, who as private secretary 
to the Bishop of Jerusalem had joined the Bishop in Palestine, was plunged 
into the deepest grief by the death of his wife and infant son. He was 
returning to England in a very broken condition, but became so ill that it 
was thought expedient to land him at Malta. Here he was kindly received 
and cared for by a certain Dr Bonavia, whose young daughter nursed the 
stricken Englishman back to convalescence through a long and tedious 
illness. The inevitable followed. The lonely young widower married his 
devoted nurse, and later returned to England with their first child — the 
subject of this memoir. 
The Bonavia family, originally Roman, had long been settled in Malta, 
and had given many priests to the Roman communion. Dr Bonavia, 
however, had been converted to the Protestant faith, to the grief and 
annoyance of the rest of the family. The infant son of William and 
Marietta Hunt was surreptitiously baptised in the Roman Church. At an 
early age he was placed in the care of his paternal grandparents, who were 
rigid nonconformists. To them he always said he owed his profound 
knowledge of the Scriptures. As a young man he made a careful study 
of the doctrines and history of the various religious bodies, with the result 
that he finally found his place in the Anglican Church, to which he was 
most sincerely devoted. He was an English Churchman by absolute 
conviction. 
From his Italian ancestors he had inherited a passionate love of music 
and poetry ; from his grandfather, Dr Bonavia, the strong religious instinct 
which had enabled that fine old man to face much contumely and loss on 
behalf of his religious convictions, and from his English ancestors a shrewd 
business faculty which balanced the romantic and artistic strain in his 
temperament. The struggle between two conflicting sides of his nature 
was going on during the greater part of his life, but an extraordinarily 
strong sense of duty made him abandon the most cherished ambitions when 
he felt called upon to do so in some more paramount interest. In early 
life he gave himself up to poetry ; but when he realised that he could not 
