OF

January.

SIR SAMUEL BIGNOLD.

THE death of this respected gentleman, at the age of 83, took place on the second day of the new year. He was, during a long and active life, much associated with the commercial and social progress of Norwich, his native city. During more than fifty years he held the office of Secretary to the Norwich Union Assurance Society. He served the city as Sheriff in 1830, and was four times Mayor, the last time in 1873. A Conservative politician, in 1854 he was elected M.P. for Norwich, but sat only three years in the House of Commons. The honour of knighthood was conferred upon him in 1854, when he presented to Her Majesty the Norwich loyal address in support of the war against Russia. Sir Samuel Bignold's wife, who died in 1860, leaving a numerous family, was a daughter of William Atkins, Esq., of Ridlington.

MR. CHADWICK.

Mr. James Chadwick, one of the founders of the Anti-Corn Law League, died at Leamington, on January 11, in his 90th year. He made a fortune as a Manchester manufacturer, which he greatly increased by investments. After he had retired from business, Mr. Chadwick took a very keen though not conspicuous interest in public affairs, and at the general elections last year he made a point of going to vote, because it was his first opportunity of doing so, as he had always wished, "by ballot." He was a munificent subscriber of money in furtherance of

Liberal movements, and Mr. Cobden once said that Mr. Chadwick's was the most eloquent speech he ever heard against the Corn Laws, even at a League meeting. Its words were simply these:-" Mr. Chairman, I cannot make a speech, but I will give you a thousand pounds."

VISCOUNT HILL.

The death of Viscount Hill happened at Hawkstone, near Shrewsbury, on January 2, after a protracted illness. The deceased, Rowland Hill, Viscount Hill, of Hawkstone and of Hardwicke, County Salop, was the elder son of John, eldest son of Sir John Hill, Bart., by his wife Mary. He was born May 10, 1800, and married, July 21, 1831, Anne, daughter of the late Mr. Joseph Clegg, of Peplow Hall, Salop. The deceased peer succeeded to the title on the death, in 1842, of his uncle, General Viscount Hill, who was raised to the peerage for his distinguished military services in 1816, having succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his grandfather in May 1824. Soon after he attained his majority he entered Parliament as representative of North Shropshire, and sat in the House of Commons for that division of the county from 1821 till his accession to the peerage. He was a Conservative in politics, and while in Parliament voted against the first Reform Bill and the Irish Tithes Bill, and was a constant supporter of the agricultural interest. Lord Hill was from June 1849 to August 1852 colonel of the Shropshire Militia, and was lieutenant-colonel commandant of the North Salop Yeomanry Cavalry. He had been lord-lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Shropshire since November 1845, and was a deputy-lieutenant of Ross-shire.

CANON KINGSLEY.

Mr. Charles Kingsley, who was born at Holne Vicarage, near Dartmoor, on June 12, 1819, was a son of the late Rev. Charles Kingsley, rector of Chelsea, the representative of an ancient family of Cheshire, the Kingsleys of Kingsley, in the forest of Delamere, who joined the Parliamentary army under Cromwell, and afterwards fought for Charles II. under Monk. He received his earliest education at home, and at 14 years of age became a pupil of Mr. Derwent Coleridge, who prepared him for King's College, London, where he entered as a student, and subsequently passed on to Magdalen College, Cambridge. His course at the university was marked by numerous successes, and in 1842 he took his B.A. degree, coming out as a senior optime with a firstclass in classics. At the close of the year he was ordained by Dr. Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, and licensed to the curacy of Eversley, his first and last charge; for, on the death of the rector in 1844, he was presented to the living by Sir John Cope, the patron, and it was in the rectory-house that he died on the 23rd inst., after holding the benefice for thirty years. His literary reputation gained for him in 1859 the appointment of Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, but this he resigned ten years later, when, on the elevation of Canon Moberly to the episcopate as Bishop of Salisbury, he was appointed by the Crown to the vacant stall at Chester. This he held only for four years, as on the death of Canon Nepean in 1873 he was offered the Westminster canonry, which, both in dignity and emolument, was superior to that of the provincial cathedral. Among the other offices which Mr. Kingsley held may be mentioned the post of chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, to which he was appointed in 1859; he was also one of the chaplains to the Prince of Wales, and domestic chaplain to Lord Sydney. In the earlier part of his career Mr. Kingsley was an enthusiastic apostle of socialism and democracy, qualified, as in the the creed of Lamennais, by the religious doctrine of Christendom. He was one of a small party of clever and generous young men who took up, after the collapse of political Chartism in 1848, what was essentially good in the popular cause of "the working man." They had a magazine called "Politics for the People," and a weekly newspaper called The Leader; they addressed meetings of trades unions, and set up that excellent institution, the College, in Red Lionsquare. The late Rev. F. D. Maurice, Mr. T. Hughes, Mr. Ludlow, Mr. Town

send, and the Rev. E. Larken were associated with Mr. Kingsley in these efforts to reform public opinion. To this period and its prevailing influences belong the first notable writings of Charles Kingsley, "Yeast," and "Alton Locke,Tailor and Poet," which came a year or two later. " Hypatia, or New Foes with an Old Face," published in 1853, was an historical romance intended to illustrate a fancied analogy between the general corruption of society in the decline of the Roman Empire and the present condition of Europe, the scene being laid at Alexandria in the fourth century. A more direct attempt was made, in "Two Years Ago," to represent the characteristics, as the author viewed them, of the nineteenth century, His affection for the local associations with English history came out in "Westward Ho," a stirring tale of the Elizabethan sea-rovers and sea-fighters; of Raleigh and Grenville, of Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher; of the Golden Americas and the Spanish Armada. "Hereward the Wake," a tale of the stubborn struggle maintained by the Saxons in the Fen Country against their Norman conqueror, appeared later. We have mentioned only his principal works of fiction. A large amount of other writing-descriptive sketches, critical and historical essays, lectures and sermons, fairy tales, allegories or parables, for the instruction of young people, and pleasing discussions of natural history or popular science-issued from his pen. He was a geologist, a botanist, a zoologist, and an eager sportsman, and the brightest of word-painters for landscape. His book of West Indian descriptions, entitled "At Last," was occasioned by the late gratification of a lifelong ardent desire to see the forests of a tropical region. "The Water-Babies" would be a charming tale for children, if it were not a satire on their elders. Poetry, too, in different forms of verse, from "6 The Saint's Tragedy" of German Elizabeth, to many a graceful and tender little song, proceeded from this fertile mind.

DR. PATRICK LEAHY.

The Most Rev. Dr. Patrick Leahy, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, died on the 26th inst. This distinguished prelate was born May 31, 1806, the son of Patrick Leahy, Esq., county surveyor of Cork, an eminent civil engineer. He received his education at Maynooth College, and is remembered by his contemporaries not only for his theological learning, but especially for his brilliant literary and classical attain

SIR A. MACDONNELL.

The Right Hon. Sir Alexander Macdonnell of Murlough, in the county of Antrim, who died on January 22, in Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, in the 81st year of his age, was a son of the late Dr. James Macdonnell, of Belfast. He was born in the year 1794, and received his early education at Westminster School, where he was a little junior to Lord Russell in standing. He passed in due Course from Westminster to Christ

Church, Oxford, where he took the usual degrees. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1824, but afterwards settled in Dublin, where he became connected with the National Board of Education. In 1844, not long after his appointment as Resident Commissioner of that Board, he was sworn a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, and on his retirement, after many years of active labour, was created a Baronet, for his services in the above capacity, in 1872.

LORD ST. LEONARDS.

Lord St. Leonards died at his residence, Boyle Farm, Thames Ditton, on January 29. The Right Hon. Sir Edward Burtenshaw Sugden, LL.D., D.C.L., high steward of Kingston-on-Thames, was the son of a hairdresser, of Duke Street, Westminster, and was born in February 1781. For a few years he practised as a conveyancer, and was

called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1807. Before donning the gown, his treatise on " Purchasers" attracted the attention of the profession. It has since been considerably enlarged, and has passed through fourteen editions.

He

gave up conveyancing, obtained extensive practice at the Chancery Bar, and in 1822 became a King's Counsel, and a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. He, at different times, was returned to the House of Commons for Weymouth, Melcombe Regis, and St. Mawes, took a prominent part in Parliamentary discussions, and was foremost among those who opposed the Reform

Bill. In June 1829, when the Duke of Wellington held the reins of Government, he was appointed Solicitor-General; and in 1834, when Sir R. Peel formed a Ministry, Sir Edward Sugden went to Ireland as Lord Chancellor. Resigning that judicial office on the retirement of the Cabinet, he was returned to the House of Commons for Ripon, and vacated his seat in September 1841 on resuming, under Sir Robert Peel's Minis try, his position as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in which he continued until the disruption of the Conservative party in 1846. For some time he did not figure prominently in public affairs, but accepted the post of Lord Chancellor in Lord Derby's first administration in 1852, and was raised to the Peerage with the title of Baron St. Leonards. In 1858 Lord Derby was desirous that Lord St. Leonards should again receive the Great Seal, but he declined the responsibility in consequence of his advanced age, though he afterwards took an active and influential part in the business of Parliament, and exerted himself to keep up the character and efficiency of the House of Lords as a judicial tribunal, and to correct by legislation several anomalies in the law of property. In addition to his celebrated treatise on "The Laws of Vendors and Purchasers," Lord St. Leonards has written a work on "Powers," "Cases Decided by the House of Lords," an edition of "Gilbert on Uses," an essay on the "New Real Property Laws," pamphlets against the "Registration of Deeds," and other essays on legal subjects. His last publication, the "Handy Book of Property Law," is familiar to most readers. His lordship's last appearance in public was on or about his 90th birthday, when, as high steward of Kingston-upon-Thames, he rode on horseback at the head of a procession to commemorate the throwing open of the bridge over the Thames entirely free from toll.

ADMIRAL SIR G. WESTPHAL.

Admiral Sir George Augustus Westphal died on the 12th inst., at his resi- . dence at Brighton, in his 90th year. This distinguished man was the last surviving officer of Nelson's ship, the "Victory," at Trafalgar. He entered the navy in 1798, under the auspices of the Duke of Kent, and after serving on the North American and West Indian stations joined the "Victory," then bearing Lord Nelson's flag, and took part in her in the glorious action of Trafalgar, where he was severely wounded, and, being carried below, was laid in the next berth to his dying chief,