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By HORACE B. WOODWARD, F.R.S. 
LTHOUGH not a native of Bristol, nor one. who 
-ZTl achieved distinction in the city, yet Robert Ethe- 
ridge may be appropriately enrolled among the worthies 
who have emanated from this ancient seaport. Born at 
Ross, in Herefordshire, on December 3, 1819, he received 
an ordinary school education in that town, and proceeded 
as a youth to seek occupation at Bristol. His grand- 
father, on the paternal side, was then Harbour Master, 
and through his influence Robert Etheridge gained em- 
ployment at first as an usher in a school, and afterwards as 
assistant in a commercial establishment. There are few 
records of his life at this period, but his interest in natural 
science had been aroused by specimens given to him by 
his grandfather, who during frequent voyages abroad had 
collected many natural curiosities. Thus, while still a 
youth, he commenced to form a collection, using his mother’s 
linen press for a cabinet. He then made a beautiful 
collection of mosses and other dried plants, and to these 
he added minerals and sundry geological specimens, so that 
by the time he was twenty- one years of age he had a 
carefully arranged museum of his own. 
During these early years he attended lectures at the 
175 
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