Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 7.djvu/296

 The Society has lost another distinguished member in, who died in April last.

The earlier incidents of Mr. Newport's personal history, although simple in themselves, are well deserving of record, as important passages in the life of one who, through inborn love of knowledge, just confidence in his own powers, indomitable energy and rigorous self-denial, raised himself to eminence from a humble walk of life, in spite of the difficulties he had to encounter from the want of early training and other aids which a more advantageous social position supplies.

George Newport was born on the 4th July 1803, in the city of Canterbury, where his father was a wheelwright, and at that time in comfortable worldly circumstances. The son gave early indications of mental activity, showing, as soon as he could read, a great fondness for books, and also a taste for drawing. This latter taste, though never aided by external cultivation, abode by him through life, and proved of great use to him in his subsequent studies by enabling him to represent accurately, and at the moment, the subjects of his investigation.

At the usual age he was sent to a day-school in Canterbury, where he received the ordinary English education obtainable by boys in his station of life. When he had reached his 14th year he was removed from school, and, very much, it is said, against his will, was bound apprentice to his father. Although he soon became an expert workman in the lighter branches of the trade, he never got the better of his dislike to the occupation, and often avowed his purpose of abandoning it at the expiration of his apprenticeship.

Before this period arrived, however, his future prospects, humble as they were at best, became still more clouded. His father, it is said from no fault of his own, but from unavoidable circumstances, became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and the whole of his little property had to be sacrificed for the benefit of his creditors. Under this change of circumstances, the son, instead of seeking, as he had hoped to do, for some more intellectual employment, was compelled to continue at his father's trade, and by working hard for three or four days in the week, he earned sufficient to enable him to devote the remaining days to pursuits more congenial to his mind. These were chiefly—reading on general subjects both literary and