Part 42

Williamson's writings are not easy reading, especially for the modern botanical student, for the terminology is often unfamiliar, and the arrangement of the matter unsystematic.

It would be out of place to enter on a criticism of details, but it is necessary to call attention to the one serious mistake which ran through much of Williamson's work, though at the last he to a great extent corrected it himself. He was always too ready to interpret specimens of the same fossil plant which differed in size and anatomical complexity, as developmental stages of one and the same organ. Such differences among fossils are more often due to the order of the branch on the plant, or to the level at which a section is cut. This error led to some mistaken, and indeed impossible views of the process of development. I mention this partly because I have noticed the same fundamental mistake in the work of much more modern writers. "We are none of us infallible--not even the youngest of us," and among the latest fossil-botany papers I have read, I have detected the very same confusion between differences of size and differences of age, which constitutes the most serious blemish in Williamson's writings.

As is well known, Williamson in his latest independent work corrected, as regards the Lepidodendrons, on the basis of a laborious re-investigation, the chief mistake he had made as to their process of growth; he thus displayed an openness of mind worthy of a great naturalist.

I first saw Williamson on February 16, 1883, when I attended his Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution, "On some anomalous Oolitic and Palaeozoic Forms of Vegetation." I did not, however, make his acquaintance till six years later, when we met at the British Association Meeting at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1889. This led to a visit to his house in company with Prof. Bower; it was on March 8, 1890, that I first had a sight of his collection. I find the entry in my diary: "Spent 7 hours over fossils, especially Lyginodendron and Lepidodendron, preparations magnificent." I at once became an ardent convert to the cult of fossil plants to which I had hitherto been indifferent, though I must in fairness admit that Count Solms-Laubach's Einleitung had done something to prepare the way. I well remember the state of enthusiasm in which I returned home from Manchester. A subsequent visit confirmed me in the faith, but it was some little time before I put my convictions into practice. In 1892 Williamson, then in his 76th year, resigned the Manchester Professorship and came to live near London. In the same year I migrated to Kew, and it was agreed that we should work in concert, an arrangement which received every encouragement from the then Director, Thiselton-Dyer. Williamson first came to the Jodrell Laboratory on Friday, December 2, 1892. Then, and on many later visits, he carried a satchel over his shoulder, crammed with the treasures of his collection. For some months he came pretty regularly once a week, afterwards less often. On these visits we discussed the work I had done on the sections during the interval, and sometimes our discussions were decidedly lively. In the end, however, we always managed to come to a satisfactory agreement. Our first joint paper (Calamites, Calamostachys and Sphenophyllum) was sent off to the Royal Society, rather more than a year from the start, on December 29, 1893.

During the early part of 1894 Williamson came occasionally to Kew, and our discussions were renewed, this time chiefly on Lyginodendron. Our second paper (Roots of Calamites) was despatched on October 30, 1894.

After a considerable interval Williamson again visited Kew, on December 12, 1894, when we started on his Lepidodendron sections, a subject on which we never published in conjunction. His last visit was on January 7, 1895. A few days later his health broke down, and though there were many fluctuations he was never able to come to the laboratory again. I saw him last, at his own house, on June 4th. On the 13th I read our joint paper on Lyginodendron and Heterangium at the Royal Society; on the 23rd he passed peacefully away.

If Williamson could have lived it would, I think, have given him great pleasure to see the success, in his own country, of the work which he inaugurated and the progress of the subject to which he devoted the last 25 years of his life. I am happy to believe that he felt in the evening of his days, that the period of comparative neglect through which his work had passed, was at an end. For myself, I may say that my work, since I knew Williamson, owes its inspiration to him. But quite apart from our scientific relations it is a great privilege to have known him. Though his many-sided activity, as physician, professor, popular lecturer, geologist, zoologist, botanist and artist involved an amount of work which to us of a less strenuous generation is almost inconceivable, Williamson was as far as possible from being the mere student. His personality was intensely human. He was a man of most decided likes and dislikes; his conversation was often brilliant, and sometimes vigorous to an almost startling degree.

The grand old race of all-round naturalists found in Williamson its worthy culmination, and we can only regret that, from the nature of the case, he can have no equal successor.

FOOTNOTES:

Since these words were spoken the veteran leader of English Botany has passed away. A notice of Sir Joseph's career will be found in this volume, and the present writer has given some account of his work on fossil plants in an Anniversary Address to the Linnean Society, May 24th, 1912.

The portrait of Henry Witham is from the original picture in the possession of the Salvin family, at Croxdale; a photograph of the picture was kindly obtained for me by Mr Philip Witham.

Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist, p. 6.

Reminiscences, p. 12.

Reminiscences, p. 33.

Reminiscences, p. 78.

Reminiscences, p. 136.

Reminiscences, p. 190.

Reminiscences, p. 203.

Nature, Vol. IV., 1871, p. 357.

Loc. cit., p. 409.

Nature, Vol. LII. 1895, p. 441.

Three characteristic figures from these originals have been reproduced for this volume (Plates 22-24).

Williamson, "On the light thrown upon the question of the Growth and Development of the Carboniferous Arborescent Lepidodendra by a study of the details of their Organisation." Mem. and Proc. Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., Ser. IV. Vol. IX. 1895.

The portrait of Williamson is from a photograph kindly lent by Mrs Williamson, and taken, as she informs me, at Torquay in or about 1876, when he was about 60.

HARRY MARSHALL WARD

1854-1906

BY SIR WILLIAM THISELTON-DYER

Training at South Kensington--Cambridge--Germany--investigates coffee disease in Ceylon--his early investigations--appointment to Manchester and association with Williamson--Ward's brilliance as an investigator--Cooper's Hill--investigation of lily disease--leguminous root tubercles--symbiosis and the ginger-beer plant--the Croonian Lecture--the bacteriology of water--bactericidal action of light--Ward's "law of doubling"--appointment to Cambridge--mycopiasm controversy--infection and immunity--physiological varieties of Rusts--bridgeing species--illness and death--his record as an investigator--personal characteristics.