530 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
assumed the role of author. In a general way he rendered these services 
with pleasure and because he delighted in his work, but there 
were instances of this kind of partnership which he felt to be unfair, 
and concerning which he would remark with a smile, “ My poverty, but 
not my will, consents.” 
Tuffen West was the eldest son of a not undistinguished man. William 
West, of Leeds, his father, was F.R.S., and in a foremost position as a 
consulting chemist in the northern counties. He was one of the founders 
of the British Association for the Promotion of Science and of the Leeds 
Philosophical Society. He was much engaged as a medical jurist in 
cases requiring chemical knowledge, and it is said that his son’s devotion 
to microscopic work was, when quite a youth, much developed by his 
being employed in the examination of blood stains in a case of murder 
which was tried at the York Assizes. 
Those interested in tracing the hereditary descent of special faculties 
may hold it not superfluous to record that William West’s father was 
cousin to Benjamin West, the distinguished President of the Royal 
Academy. Artistic taste had shown itself also in other members of the 
family. 
West’s parents were members of the Society of Friends, and Tuffen 
w r as educated at an excellent school at York belonging to that sect. 
There was a museum in the school, and much attention was given to the 
study of botany and zoology. The name of its master, John Ford, 
deserves to be recorded as one to whose kindly assistance Tuffen West, in 
common with many others, owed much in the development of his early 
tastes. As a schoolboy he was an indefatigable collector, and every 
moment that could be stolen from his lessons was devoted to insects, 
plants, and skeletons. Not far from the bottom of the school cricket- 
ground ran the Foss, a stream which yielded to the young naturalist 
uncounted treasures. In connection with this river an anecdote is told 
which illustrates alike West’s habits and his character as a boy. The 
head-master having found that his boundary rules were often broken, 
proceeded on one occasion to make inquisition of his pupils. Calling 
them in succession before him, the question was put, “ How many times 
hast thou been out of bounds during the last fortnight ? ” Some denied 
the charge altogether ; some owned to once, some to more, but when it 
came to Tuffen’s turn he replied frankly, to the astonishment alike of 
his comrades and the master, “ Please, John Ford, every day.” 
After leaving school Tuffen West was apprenticed to Mr. Henry 
Brady, of Gateshead, a surgeon of scientific attainments himself, and 
who had the singular, possibly unique, good fortune to see three of his 
sons in succession elected into the ranks of the Royal Society. Although 
not much is known as to the details of his Gateshead life, it may well be 
supposed that in such a family a taste for natural science would certainly 
be fostered. Towards the end of his apprenticeship an accident occurred 
which put an end to his prospect of a medical career. By some in- 
advertency in a chemical experiment in his father’s laboratory an 
explosion occurred, and in addition to other injuries Tuffen West in- 
curred the irreparable loss of hearing. Through the whole of his subse- 
quent life he was so deaf that in spite of mechanical aids it w as im- 
possible for him to listen to ordinary conversation. This was a terrible 
