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I.

A MEMOIR OF

DR. S. P. WOODWARD, A.L.S., F.G.S., &c.

WITH A LIST OF HIS PUBLISHED PAPERS.

BY HORACE B. WOODWARD, F.G.S.

Read 26th April, 1881.

THE roll of Norfolk Naturalists would be incomplete without the name of S. P. Woodward. Although his contributions to the Natural History of his native county are small, yet in wider fields his published works have occupied an influential position; and his 'Manual of the Mollusca' alone sufficiently proclaims the author to be one of the scientific men of mark of whom Norfolk may justly be proud.*

To the class of Naturalists of whom Edward Forbes was preeminently the leader, belonged the subject of this memoir. In boyhood a student of insects, he became later on an ardent collector of plants, and an excellent botanist; geology next took up most of his attention; and, finally, he devoted himself to the particular study of the Mollusca, with a perseverance that led him to be recognized as the highest living authority on recent and fossil shells.

As a Natural History Reviewer his "Literary Remains," published in the 'Critic' and other periodicals, have commended themselves to all who have read them, by their pleasant style, their valuable. criticism, and the many original remarks with which they are interspersed.

Such a bald statement, even if accompanied by a list and analysis of his chief scientific works, would give but little idea of the man, of his passionate love of Nature, and his earnestness in striving to do thoroughly whatever he undertook. The story of his life may present few incidents of particular interest to Naturalists, and I shall attempt no more than an outline of its leading features; but the position he had gained for himself, and the esteem in

*A short memoir of S. P. Woodward was given in 'Men of the Time,' by E. Walford (1862).

which he was held by men like Sedgwick, Darwin, Lyell, and Owen, not to mention other distinguished men of science, leave me no room to doubt that I do right in offering this tribute in memory of him to the 'Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society.'

His scientific works are so well known to all who would be interested in them, that the list appended to this memoir will in most cases sufficiently indicate his labours. My object will be to sketch some of the surroundings and circumstances of his life, that served to prompt his undertakings.

Samuel Pickworth Woodward was the second son of Samuel Woodward of Norwich, and was born in Briggs Lane, in that city, on the 17th of September, 1821. His father, at that date (and until his death in 1838) a clerk in Gurneys' Bank, was well known as an enthusiastic Naturalist, and especially for his researches into the Antiquities and Geology of Norfolk.*

In 1828, when seven years of age, S. P. Woodward was placed at the Priory school, at Grayfriars (situated near the top of what is now the Prince of Wales' Road, in Norwich), conducted by Mr. William Brooke, where he received a sound knowledge of Latin and Greek, besides the ordinary English subjects. In 1831 his father removed to Grove Cottage, Lakenham, where the remaining years of his childhood were spent. As a boy he often accompanied his father, his elder brother B. B. Woodward, and their school-fellow T. G. Bayfield, on country walks; sometimes to the crag-pits at Bramerton, Postwick, and Thorpe, at other times in search of plants on Mousehold, and on the heaths and marshes of St. Faith's, Horsham; and no doubt these excursions kindled the love of Natural History which influenced his after-life.

As before mentioned, entomology was his earliest recreative science, and on one occasion he brought home some specimens of the Hymenopterous insect Trichiosoma lucorum, a notice of which his father contributed to the 'Magazine of Natural History' on the 16th May, 1831, accompanied by a drawing (which was engraved) made by his little son, then nine and a half years of age, and entirely self-taught.t

* A memoir of Samuel Woodward was published in the Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. vol. ii. p. 563.

+ See Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. v. (1832) p. SC.

His half-holidays were mostly spent in rambles with his brother Bernard, and in learning the names of the birds, and butterflies, and flowers they noticed in their walks. Nor did they neglect the "slugs and snails," for they searched the country round, and collected in hedge and marsh nearly a hundred species. Many years later he spoke of the hours thus spent as among the pleasantest recollections of his school-boy days.

In June, 1835, S. P. Woodward, then not quite fourteen years of age, stayed a short time at Yarmouth, with Mr. Dawson Turner, F.R.S., having been asked to collect plants for him. Early in the following year (1836) his school-days had terminated, and he was engaged by Mr. Turner to work at his extensive collection of dried plants. Accordingly he left Norwich in February by the riversteamer, and found the passage over Breydon very pleasant. Writing home, he observes that

"Hundreds of little snow-white Gulls and Terns were running about the sands, the Herons were wading breast deep in the shallow water, every post had its long-necked Cormorant, and large flocks of Royston Crows * were picking shells out of the mud banks, which being covered with grass wrack looked more like a common intersected by ditches than a quicksand which would at most bear a duck or a gull.”

He found plenty to do when he arrived at his destination, and in writing to his mother he says:

"My work this morning [Feb. 16th, 1836] consisted in carrying the plants from the Ante-library to the Attic, up two long flights of stairs, more than twenty times, with as many as I could possibly carry, Mr. T. laughing all the time in a manner peculiar to himself."

"Mr. T.'s collection consists of almost all the British flowering plants, a vast number of foreign plants, mosses, fungi, &c., &c., named and arranged according to the old system. These I shall have to clean, re-name and arrange according to the present systems. Besides these, Mr. T. has a great quantity of unarranged plants (many hundreds) which I shall have also to clean, name, fasten on paper and arrange; they are mostly in parcels just as they were sent from all the great botanists who lived twenty or thirty years ago, some of the plants have been in the papers they are now in more than forty years, and the worms have eaten them through and through, but they are very valuable nevertheless!"

In this employment he made great progress with his botanical knowledge, and for some years afterwards the study of plants

* Hooded or Norway Crow.

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