Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/187

 Town for the instruction of workmen. His first exhibited work, ‘Penelope,’ appeared at the Royal Academy in 1852, but next year he went to Dinan, and, turning his attention to landscape-painting, sent to the Royal Academy a picture of ‘A Valley in Brittany,’ which was followed in 1854 by a large picture of the ruined monastery of ‘Léhon, from Mont Parnasse, Brittany.’ He then, without returning to England, set out to join Mr. William Holman Hunt in Egypt, and reached Alexandria on 6 Dec. 1853. He spent some months in Egypt and in the Holy Land. During his stay at Cairo he painted a portrait of Sir Richard Burton in Arab costume, and made some careful and highly finished studies and sketches of eastern life. His ‘Sunset behind the Pyramids’ was rejected at the Royal Academy in 1855, but three of his oriental pictures, ‘An Arab Sheikh and Tents in the Egyptian Desert,’ ‘Dromedary and Arabs at the City of the Dead, Cairo,’ and an ‘Interior of a Deewan, formerly belonging to the Copt Patriarch, near the Esbekeeyah, Cairo,’ were in the exhibition of 1856. Many commissions followed, and Seddon, after returning to England in 1855, revisited Egypt in quest of fresh materials for his pictures; but within a month of his arrival at Cairo he died of dysentery in the church mission-house there on 23 Nov. 1856. He was buried in the protestant cemetery at Cairo.

Seddon left unfinished a large picture of ‘Arabs at Prayer.’ An exhibition of his works was held at the Society of Arts in 1857, when an appreciative address was delivered by Mr. John Ruskin. His picture of ‘Jerusalem and the Valley of Jehoshaphat from the Hill of Evil Counsel,’ painted on the spot in 1854, was purchased by subscription and presented to the National Gallery. His brother, John Pollard Seddon, the architect, published his ‘Memoir and Letters’ in 1858.



SEDGWICK, ADAM (1785–1873), geologist, was born on 22 March 1785 at Dent in the dales of western Yorkshire. He was the third child of Richard Sedgwick, perpetual curate of Dent, by his second wife, Margaret Sturgis. Till his sixteenth year he attended the grammar school at Dent, of which, during this time, his father became headmaster. Adam was next sent to the well-known school at Sedbergh. There he remained till 1804, when he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a sizar. For a few months before he read with [q. v.], the surgeon and mathematician, who had helped to bring him into the world. An attack of typhoid fever in the autumn of 1805 nearly proved fatal. He was elected scholar in 1807, and graduated B.A. in 1808, with the place of fifth wrangler. The examiner, who settled the final order of the candidates, is said to have considered Sedgwick the one who showed most signs of inherent power.

Sedgwick continued at Cambridge, taking private pupils and reading for a fellowship. The latter he obtained in 1810, but at the cost of serious and possibly permanent injury to his health. In May 1813 he broke a blood-vessel, and for months remained in a very weak state. In 1815, however, he was able to undertake the duties of assistant tutor, and he was ordained in 1816.

The great opportunity of his life came in the early summer of 1818, when the Woodwardian professorship of geology became vacant [see ]. Though Sedgwick was practically ignorant of the subject, and his opponent, the Rev. [q. v.], was known to have studied it, he seems to have so favourably impressed the members of the university that he was elected by 186 votes to 59. Hitherto the office had been almost a sinecure; Sedgwick, although the income was then only 100l. a year, determined to make it a reality. He at once began earnest study of the subject, spending part of the summer at work in Derbyshire, and gave his first course of lectures in the Easter term of 1819. It was soon evident that a wise choice had been made. Sedgwick's lectures became each year more attractive. His repute as a geologist rapidly increased, and he took a leading part in promoting the study of natural science in the university. One instrument for this purpose was the Cambridge Philosophical Society, in the foundation of which he was one of the most active. He interested himself in the geological collection of the university, which he augmented often at his private expense, and saw transferred to a more commodious building in 1841.

In 1818 Sedgwick was elected fellow of the Geological Society; he was president in 1831, and received its Wollaston medal in 1851. He was made fellow of the Royal Society in 1830, and gained the Copley medal in 1863. In 1833 he was president of the British Association, and served as president of the geological section in 1837, 1845, 1853, and 1860. He was made 