THOMAS BOLTON, F.R.M.S. 
299 
time and attention to putting the charities of the neighbour¬ 
hood upon a better footing, and was instrumental, with 
others, in securing the restoration of some of the bequests. 
Side by side with all this outlying work, however, the 
state of their own business was a source of much anxiety. 
The formation of railways, so advantageous to the Midlands 
generally, was fatal to the trade of Kinver. Lying as they 
do right off the route of the iron roads, the Hyde ironworks 
were dependent upon water carriage alike for the coal and 
iron needed for their trade purposes, and also for the removal 
of the manufactured produce—bars, wire-rods, and the like. 
It can hardly be doubted, too, that Mr. Bolton had not a 
commercial soul, and it is not at all probable that his partner, 
with the training and instincts of a lawyer, was more fitted 
than he for the successful pilotage of a great commeicial 
concern through the anxious years of the later sixties. In 
1868 the crash came. For some years, it is true, Mr. Bolton 
continued at the works as manager for one of the chief 
creditors, who had purchased them, but at length even that 
despairing effort ceased, and the works were entirely closed. 
The whole of his private property gone, Bolton had to 
begin the world afresh at an age when many men are think¬ 
ing of retiring, and with a young family dependant upon his 
exertions. He then removed to Birmingham. 
It is from this event, however, that the widespread know¬ 
ledge of Mr. Bolton’s name and abilities is dated, for he spent 
his time and earned his living by searching out and providing 
materials for the investigations of other naturalists, turning 
to good account the experience gained during his quarter of 
a century of study at Kinver, sending living materials to all 
parts of the three kingdoms, while at the same time con¬ 
tinuing his own investigations into the microscopic fauna of 
the Midlands. Thus, many of the specimens described in 
Saville Kent’s “Manual of the Infusoria” were supplied by 
Mr. Bolton; and the same may be said of the rotifers in the 
classic work of Messrs. Hudson and Gosse; and several of 
these minute organisms have been named in honour of him. 
In our own columns this year (p. 124) are described four new 
species found by him and supplied to Mr. Gosse. In 1884 
the Council of the Royal Society placed <£50 at the disposal 
of Professor Ray Lankester for the purpose of employing 
Mr. Bolton to collect material for an investigation of the fresh¬ 
water fauna of the Midland Counties; and at the Fisheries 
Exhibition a gold medal was awarded to him for an exhibit 
illustrating minute life relating to the food of fishes. In the 
same year (1884), on the death of Mr. W. H. Cox, assistant 
