An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY I9 Wakefield," and Tusser's "Five hundred points of good husbandry," a strange selection for a boy of r5. During r~59 Fred W. Macdonald,1 R. Howlett, Adams, Oxley and others, were some of the shining lights of tliis institution, which was called the "Chelsea Athenceum,',. and held in the Church schoolrooms under the presidency of a worthy and reverend bore, the Rev. W. W. Robinson, of whose Sunday -School I was once superintendent and honorary secretary, and I afterwards had to do with St. Luke's Sunday School, the management of which by the B1 unts, was not of the best, their methods being- referred to in my "Rubbish and Nonsense." Being only just turned 15, I naturally retained many schoolboy tastes. I was still very keen on natural history, and kept a very cl~se diary of finds and appearances of plants, and was collecting insects nearly every evening in the lanes by the Brompton Cemetery, and on to Wimbledon Common, &c., by myself-in one of which excursions I took C. edusa near the " Rounds "-a great epoch in my life. On 20th July, 1859 (then aged r5), I walked a mile in II minutes in my clothes, and in November walked to Kingston Bridge and back ( r i½ miles) in 3 hours 53 mins. This autumn I went to Herne Bay with my mother, E.C. Rye, and Frank. We had some glorious entomological rambles in Bleau \Voods, E.C.R. taking Polisticus, C. edusa~ &c., and bad a most enjoyable natural history holiday. A very early fall of snow came down on 29th September. In September my brother Frank went to Halls School at Chelsea. I was still entomologizing and pottering about Wimbledon Common, &c., and had my first long walk with E. C. Rye by Esher, &c., and during the year had a fine take of Z. Aeschuli in lilac trees in the gardens at Sloane Square. On r9th March, 1860, I prepared and was to have read a lecture on " The Romans in England," for the Chelsea Athenceum, but funked it, and got it read by someone else. In April, :finding after two years absence from school that my ignorance was appalling, and likely to be a great hindrance to my future life, I went to the evening classes I Afterwards a very well-known public lecturer. I took the chair (while I was Mayor of Norwich) at one of his lectures after an interval of 40 years.