Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/288

Rh Secretary to Mr. Abbott, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and was chosen to examine and digest the Parliamentary returns under the first Population Act in 1800, a duty which he continued to perform at the three succeeding decennial periods, and was pre- paring to discharge it for the fifth time during the present year, when he was attacked by the disease which terminated in his death. He was appointed second Clerk Assistant to the House of Com- mons in 1815, and subsequently Clerk Assistant, an office which he continued to hold for the remainder of his life.

The introductions to the " Population Returns," of which he was the author, are remarkable for the very able analysis which they contain of the general condition, changes and prospects of all classes of the population.

Mr. Rickman was an excellent classical scholar, and was, in ad- dition to many other attainments, extremely well acquainted with many branches of engineering and practical mechanics. He was the intimate friend, and after his death the executor, of the late Mr. Telford, whose autobiography he published, with a preface and an atlas of engravings descriptive of his principal works, which is in every way worthy of the fame of that great engineer.

Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, member of the Royal Academy and a distinguished architect, was a member of a family which has long been honourably connected with the arts. He was born in 1 766, and acquired a knowledge of his profession under the instructions of his father and uncle, and was subsequently employed, during many years, in the somewhat ambiguous capacity of architect and builder in the execution of many considerable works. In 1824' he was selected by George IV., to whom he had been formerly known, to design and superintend the magnificent alterations and additions to Windsor Castle, a truly royal and national work, in which he succeeded in combining uncommon external grandeur and strict architectural propriety with great convenience and splendour of internal arrangements. Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, besides many im- portant original works, made very extensive additions to the princi- pal mansions of our nobility, including Chatsworth, Longleat, Wo- burn. Badminton, and Ashridge. He was a man of sound judg- ment and great integrity, and was very generally beloved for the remarkable simplicity and frankness of his manners, his great kind- ness of heart, and cheerful and unaffected good humour. He died in February last, and was buried in St. George's Chapel, at Windsor, in a vault which he had himself prepared for the reception of the remains of a beloved daughter, who died in the flower of her age.

Captain Charles Phillipps, of the Royal Navy, was the author of several inventions of great value in navigation, and in the equipment and management of ships : such are his methods of suspending compasses so as to avoid concussions in time of action ; his improvement of the pump-dale of ships, and more particularly the capstan, which bears his name, and which is in general use in the Navy. He was an active and enterprising officer, who had seen much service during the last war, had been eminently successful in rescuing