497 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE LATE DR. LATHAM. 
The Gentleman 8 Magazine for July, 1837, contains a brief memoir of Dr. 
Latham, the principal facts being extracted, though without acknowledgment, 
from The Naturalist , Vol. II., p. 56. It includes, however, the following 
additional particulars, which will doubtless be interesting to our readers :— 
In the correspondence of the Rev. Samuel Denne, the Kentish antiquary, and 
Vicar of Wilmington, near Dartford, which is printed in the sixth volume of 
Nichols’s Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century , the 
name of Mr. Latham frequently occurs; and at last his departure from Dartford 
is thus noticed under the date of the 3rd of May, 1796 :—“ By the removal of 
Mr. Latham from Dartford to Romsey, this vicinity has lost an experienced 
practitioner in the medical, chirurgical, and clinical line; and I am deprived of 
the conversation and assistance of a brother F.S.A. His departure is the more 
to be regretted, because he had upon his shelves many books of the antiquarian 
class to which I had free access; and he could likewise make good use of his 
pencil, and was always ready to employ it. The settling of his son in Romsey, 
and his marrying his daughter to a surgeon and apothecary in Winchester, were 
what determined him to transmigrate to the county of Hants; and as he has 
taken so long a flight, ancMUfe past the age of youth and activity, it is not probable 
that his visits into Kent will be frequent. An apology is requisite for styling 
him only Mr., he being a Dr. by diploma from Acad. Cses., and enrolled M.D. in 
the lists of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies of London.” 
Mr. Latham was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on the 15th 
of Dec., 1774; and of the Royal Society on the 25th of May, 1775. He had 
been the senior member of the former body since the death of the late venerable 
historian of Surrey, William Bray, Esquire, Dec. 23, 1833; and of the Royal 
Society for a longer period, since the death of Joseph Planta, Esq., Keeper of 
the British Museum, Dec. 3, 1827.* In 1788, he was one of the original 
members, or founders, of the Linnsean Society. 
Dr. Latham first appeared as an author in 1770, in # the Philosophical Trans¬ 
actions, and afterwards published the following works:— A General Synopsis of 
Birds , in six volumes, 4to., with two supplementary volumes, 1781—1801; 
* Sir Abraham Hume is now the father of the Royal Society, elected Dec. 14, 1775; and Sir 
John English Dolben, Bart., of the Society of Antiquaries, elected April 6, 1780, 
