566 
year oi Ins apprenticeship he was sent round the country as far as 
Leiston in Suffolk, to take out the wool to the spinners who lived 
out of the city, and to gather in the yarn that had been spun, and 
pay them for it. At such times he had large sums of money with 
him, and it will give a very pleasing evidence of his employers’ 
opinion of him, that he never failed to execute these commissions 
to their satisfaction. 
“ In his eighteenth year ho had an attack of rheumatic fever 
and jaundice so severe that his life was despaired. He was, how- 
ever, restored to health, but his constitution was so much impaired 
by it, that it was only by a strict attention to his manner of living, 
that he was spared so long as he was. 
“ During this period he continued to improve his mind, eagerly 
availing himself of the kind permission Mr. Herring gave him to 
use his library. His pursuits had assumed the peculiar feature 
they retained through life. He collected and cultivated flowers, 
and his room was adorned with curious shells, etc., which he 
picked up at the shops in the city. 
“In his twenty-second year, from the general failure of busi- 
ness, Mr. Herring gave up his manufactory, and he in consequence 
found himself without any means of support. He at first thought 
of leaving England, and going to America, but a vacancy 
occurring in Messrs. Bignold and Co’s [office],* he applied 
for and obtained it [in 1811]. He never had any predilection 
for the manufacturing business, and the situation alforded him 
the opportunity of pursuing his quest of knowledge in the 
vacant evenings.” 
With his entry into the office of Mr. (afterwards Sir Samuel) 
Bignold, the memoranda noted by my uncle cease. But to 
continue the record of these private incidents, I should not omit 
to mention that in the following year (1815) Samuel Woodward 
was married to Elizabeth,! daughter of Bernard Bolingbroke of 
this city ; and from this union there resulted, in due course of 
time, a family of six sons, and three daughters, two of whom died 
in infancy. 
* The Norwich Union Fire Office, 
t She died in I860. 
