Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/45

 appointment as Commissioner of Scottish Fisheries. On the occasion of the general election in 1874, the committee for securing the return of a Liberal member for the borough of Bandon selected him for nomination, at the same time offering to relieve him from the necessity of pledging himself on any of the special questions which then formed a prominent element in Irish politics, but he declined the proffered honour. The same year, on the resignation of Mr. Bentham, he was elected to the presidency of the Linnean Society, and President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the meeting held at Sheffield in 1879. On the completion of the exploring voyage of the "Challenger," the large collection of Hydroida made during that great expedition was assigned to him for determination and description—a service which he had already performed for the Hydroida collected during the exploration of the Gulf Stream under the direction of the United States Government. Results of his original investigations are contained in memoirs published in the Philosophical Transactions, the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, as well as in Reports presented to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and to the Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard University, and in communications to the Annals of Natural History, the Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science, and other scientific journals. His more elaborate works are "A Monograph of the Freshwater Polyzoa," fol. 1856, and "A Monograph of the Gymnoblastic Hydroids," fol. 1871–72, both published by the Ray Society, and largely illustrated with coloured plates.

 ALLON,, D.D., Congregational minister, was born on the 13th of Oct. 1818, at Welton, near Hull, Yorkshire, and educated for the ministry at Cheshunt College, Hertfordshire. In Jan., 1844, he was appointed minister of Union Chapel, Islington, officiating at first as co-pastor with the Rev. Thomas Lewis, on whose death, in 1852, he became sole pastor. He was chairman of the Congregational Union in 1864–5. Although for the space of thirty-eight years he has been actively engaged in the pastoral and public duties of his ministry, he has found time to contribute largely to periodical literature, including the Contemporary Review; and Cassell's Biblical Educator. He also contributed an Essay on Worship to "Ecclesia," a volume of Essays edited by Dr. Reynolds. He wrote a "Memoir of the Rev. J. Sherman," which was originally published in 1863, and has passed through three editions; also a critical biography of the Rev. Dr. Binney, prefixed to a posthumous volume of his sermons, which he edited. In 1876 he published a volume of sermons, entitled "The Vision of God," which has gone through three editions. He has done much to promote church music in the Nonconformist churches, and compiled the "Congregational Psalmist," which is very extensively used in dissenting places of worship. Since 1865, he has been editor of the British Quarterly Review. In 1871 he received the honorary degree of D.D. from Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut. A new church, or "Congregational Cathedral," erected for him in Compton Terrace, Islington, at a cost of £41,466, was opened in Dec., 1877. In 1881 he was for the second time chairman of the Congregational Union in its Jubilee year.

 ALMA-TADEMA,, R.A., a distinguished painter, was born at Dronryp, in the Netherlands, Jan. 8, 1836. He was intended for one of the learned professions, and in training for it the works of the ancient classical writers of course engrossed much