The Presidential Address.
7
and at the time of his death he was an alderman and J.P. for
the borough, and senior partner of the firm of Gibson, Tuke,
and Gibson,8 whose banking-house is one of the chief
ornaments of the Market Square, where also stands a hand-
some fountain erected by Mr. Gibson in commemoration of
the Prince of Wales's marriage. He built a new Town Hall
and several almshouses in the town; further endowed the
Hospital founded by his father; gave seven acres as a site
for the Friends' School, of which he was Treasurer; and a
site with the princely donation of £10,000 to the British and
Foreign School Society's Training College. He was also a
liberal contributor to the Free Grammar School and many
other institutions, by no means exclusively those of the sect
to which he belonged. For many years he had presided, as
"Clerk of the Yearly Meeting," over the conferences of the
Society of Friends, and the very last act of his life was in
connection with this office ; since, acting as president during
a long discussion on 'The Book of Discipline,' he aggravated
an internal disease of long standing, and died, after five weeks'
illness, at the Devonshire House Hotel, Bishopsgate Street,
London, on April 5th, of inflammation of the kidneys.
He was buried on the 11th in the pretty little burial-ground
behind the Friends' Meeting House, in his native town, being
followed to the grave by about five thousand people, testifying
to the general respect for one of whom it has been said that
"he does not seem to have left a single enemy."
Small of stature and with a face in which several persons
have been struck by a resemblance to Mr. Herbert Spencer,
he was quiet and unobtrusive in manner. Seldom speaking
until he had formed a matured opinion, he was an unusually
"well-read" man, of wide culture and of sound judgment.
Exact, punctual, cautious, and conscientious in an unusual
degree, he was alike fitted to succeed in business or in
scientific investigation. It has been written of him by those
3 He was thus one of the remarkable number of botanists for whom we
are indebted to the banking profession, among whom have been Dawson
Turner, Edward Forster, and the present President of the Linnean
Society, the two last members of one firm.