W. Hull.
Tho. Letherbrow.
Halewood Church.

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Like the rocks of Whaley Bridge, Kinder Scout, Greenfield, and Seal Bark, those of the Hebden valley consist of millstone–grit, alternating with shale, the latter cropping out chiefly along the course of the river. It was among these shales, though perhaps more particularly in portions laid bare during the construction of the line along the main or Todmorden valley, that Samuel Gibson, the once celebrated blacksmith–naturalist of Hebden Bridge, pursued his researches in connection with fossil shells, as described in the first volume of the Transactions of the Manchester Geological Society (1841). His work is said, in the volume in question, to have been carried on in “High Green Wood,” and as regards the common use of this name, correctly so, as it is applied very generally to the entire valley, or from the village up to the insulated rocks. Properly, however, it denotes only a small portion near the latter. Gibson, a man wholly self–taught, and who kept to his anvil till nearly the time of his death, in the spring of 1849, possessed a vast amount of knowledge of almost every department of natural history. A considerable portion of his collection, comprising a cabinet of seeds of British plants, ferns, lichens, Marchantias, shells, and insects, was purchased, after his decease, for the Peel Park Museum. Another portion went to the museum once existing in Peter–street. The herbarium of flowering plants, valued at £75, went into the hands of Mr. Mark Philips. Most men suffer from some kind of constitutional malady. Poor Gibson laboured under an infirmity of temper which constantly brought him into collision with his fellow–students. He always meant well, as proved in his last famous battle over the Carex paradoxa; and probably had his life been a less lonely one the roughness would have got smoothened, and he would have been as friendly with all other men as with the writer of this little notice, which is intended rather to preserve the memory of a singularly acute and industrious observer of nature, working single–handed, in the face of enormous difficulties, than to imply the least reflection on his tendency to warfare. The distance of Gibson’s home, twenty–four miles of coach–road, prevented his often coming to Manchester; but no man was ever more welcome. How different some of those he came among! As for old Crozier, whose name we have already mentioned two or three times, and whose work was so largely identified with White Moss, Boggart–hole Clough, and Bamford–wood, in temper and disposition he was Gibson’s completest antithesis. No man has ever done more, in his own circle, to foster and diffuse the love of nature and of natural science—accomplishing this, as Crozier did, not so much through the variety and exactitude of his knowledge, as through the urbanity of his manner. Few are now living who remember Crozier; it may be allowed, therefore, to repeat what we said of him in 1858, wishing only that space would allow of an ample biography, since, although not a life of stirring incident, it was one of generous and unsophisticated good example. When first acquainted with him, the year after the accession of Her Majesty, he was curator of the Museum of Natural History then possessed by the Mechanics’ Institution, and distinguished for his skill as a bird–stuffer, though his occupation by day, and up to six p.m., was that of a master saddler. The chief portion of that excellent collection, long since unhappily sold off, had been accumulated by the earliest of the Manchester Field Natural History Societies—a band of zealous, practical men who had associated themselves, in 1829, for the furtherance of botany, entomology, ornithology, and the allied sciences. The register of names includes those of the celebrated Edward Hobson, whose volumes of moss–books are contained in our Free Libraries, of Rowland Detrosier, of all, indeed, of the earnest scientific men of the time, Crozier of course in the front. They called themselves the “Banksians,” and had regular indoor meetings up to 1836, when, owing to the loss of many members, Edward Hobson, the president, in particular, who died that year, there came a lull, and eventually a break–up. But Crozier was alive: that was enough; no world is ever so drowned but some little Ark floats on the surface of the waters; younger men arrived on the scene, the Directors of the Institution gave them every encouragement in their power, and in less than eighteen months the celebrated old Cooper–street “Natural History Class” came into existence. At intervals there were delightful evening meetings of the character, though less pretentious, that now–a–days are called soirées,—more than once under the presidentship of the late Mr. James Aspinall Turner, always a warm and liberal patron of natural history; honoured also by the presence of visitors from Preston, Halifax, Warrington, and other towns from which the journey was then possible only by whip. After coffee had been served short essays were read, and from nine o’clock until half–past ten or so the company promenaded, examining the curiosities in the glass cases that covered the wall or those laid out upon the tables, and enjoying the social pleasure which grows so largely out of consociation based upon a definite and intelligent idea, and where there is plenty to feast the eye. No man entered more thoroughly into the spirit of these gatherings than George Crozier. They were his festivals and harvest–homes, prepared for long beforehand, and looked back upon as isles of light and verdure in his wake. His love of social gatherings, his skill as a practical naturalist, were equalled by his sagacity and shrewdness. “There,” said he once, on the conclusion of the reading of a paper, “that is what we want; that wasn’t learnt out of a book.” His courtesy and generosity rose to the same level. Every Tuesday evening, when the members of the class assembled to compare their notes and discoveries of the past week, there was old Crozier, busy as usual with his birds, and only too glad to chat with his young disciples, withholding nothing he could tell that would interest and amuse, and, what was far more valuable, inspiring them with his own enthusiasm. This kind, warm–hearted, cheerful old man it was who, taking the young naturalists by the hand, first showed many of them the way to Baguley and to Carrington, to Greenfield and to Rostherne, pointing out the rarities which his large experience knew so cleverly how to find, and communicating his various knowledge with the unselfishness of one in a thousand. Nothing seemed to come strange to him. Great as was his botanical information, he excelled in a still higher degree as an entomologist and ornithologist; he was acquainted with the shape and habits of every bird and every butterfly, every branch of his knowledge helping him to enlarged success in the prosecution of the others, botany aiding entomology, and entomology facilitating botany. It was his extensive and accurate knowledge of plants that rendered him so expert in finding rare insects, being aware what species the latter feed upon, and familiar with their forms. He showed, in the highest degree, how happy a man can make himself by the study of natural history, however humble his station in life, and however confining his employment. For Crozier, like all the rest of the old Lancashire naturalists, got his living, as already indicated, by manual labour, exercised in a shop on Shudehill, the last place in the world one would look to for the abode of a naturalist, yet made by his intelligent pastimes one of the most contented in Manchester. Here we have looked over his dried plants, his choice exotics given him by friendly gardeners, examined his birds and shells, and listened while he told his adventures “by flood and field.” Of such he was always ready with large store, being, as an old Banksian associate reminds me, in a letter of pleasant anecdote and reminiscence, “one of those plain, plodding, practical naturalists, whose knowledge the field and forest, the uplands and the watery cloughs, had far more contributed to give than the lore of books.” * * * “The quiet, unromantic study of books,” he continues, “would never have made either him or them what they were. Active adventure, real life within the whole domain of nature, was their condition of enjoyment; and, consequently, the secluded footpaths, the fine old green and lonely lanes, the umbrageous bosky dell, with its clear babbling brook, and rich with plants, insects, and minerals, were their haunts.” In all his excursions he was joined by from three to a dozen of his companions in the love of science and nature; it should rather be said, perhaps, that he was generally one of every party made up by the naturalists of the day for the purpose of visiting the country, as there was but a single purpose among the whole. One of his warmest friends was Thomas Townley, originally of Blackburn, where the two men became acquainted, subsequently of Liverpool, and eventually of our own city. The circumstance is worth mentioning on two accounts. Next to a man’s acts and principles, it is interesting to know who were his closest and oldest associates, since there is always a reciprocal though unconscious influence passing from one to the other, which explains a good deal of character; and in the second place, in addition to being an excellent botanist, Townley was a neat painter in water–colours, and claimed, with a justice that is most willingly acknowledged, the credit of drawing forth the youthful genius of his friend’s son, the Robert Crozier of to–day. It is pleasant to think that the beautiful pictures which now decorate so many walls had their impulse in the little palette of the old botanist. Townley and Crozier were the first to design a “Manchester Flora,” and but for Crozier’s infirm health during the latter years of his life, the crude catalogue of 1840 would have been followed by a complete work, in which his own long observations and those of the other leading botanists of the district would have been consolidated. Crozier died before he could do the part intended. Townley, however, never let go the idea, and two years after Crozier’s death his zeal and willingness as wielder of the “pen of the ready writer,” and his wonderful memory for poetry, which here had congenial exercise, appeared in the work commonly known as “Buxton’s Guide.” So much poetry had Townley ready for introduction into it, that the useful and accurate little volume in question might easily have been swelled to double the size.[20] Townley could recite passages from any part of Pope’s Homer, and such was his admiration of that poem, that he repeatedly declared if he had his younger days before him he would learn Greek in order to peruse it in the original.

It may be added, in reference to Crozier, who was a well–built, portly man, quiet but merry, fond of a joke and a good story, mild and gentle, yet thoroughly independent, that his long and upright life, rejoiced by hearty and abiding love of nature, and the respect of every one who truly knew him, closed in 1847. He died in Peel–street, Hulme, on Friday, the 16th of April, and was interred at the Harpurhey Cemetery on the following Tuesday. Never was there a better example of the scientific man in humble life, or of the practical kind–heartedness and generosity that spring from simple, God–fearing virtue. His old friend, Townley, survived him ten years, coming to his own end September 9th, 1857.

The old Banksian minute–books and other records and illustrations of the work of fifty years ago have, very fortunately, been preserved, and are now in the safe keeping of their proper inheritor. No written memorials of the Natural History class are extant, but four or five of the original members still venerate the name of their ancient leader.