Obituary notices of fellows deceased

Abstract

Sir WILLIAM CROOKES, O.M., 1832—1919. The author of a succession of papers published by the Royal Society and other scientific bodies extending over 67 years (from 1851 to 1918), to say nothing of a number of technical treatises in the form of large volumes, must have been a man of remarkable industry as well as intellectual qualities, and those who believe in the influence of heredity will therefore be disposed to look for some indication of the ancestral origin of these qualities in the famous man who has so recently passed £way. His father, Joseph Crookes, born in 1792, the son of a small tailor in the north of England, came to London a poor boy. But he was evidently a man of brain and energy, for the tailor’s business he established proved so prosperous, that when he died in 1884, at the age of 92, he yas a rich man. Joseph Crookes married on February 24, 1831, at Aynhoe, Northamptonshire, as his second wife, Margaret Scott, and from this lady he had a second family of several sons and daughters. William was her firstborn, and resembling her in feature and in disposition, it may be surmised that he derived some of his characteristics from her.