Obituary notices of fellows deceased

Through the unexpected death of Richard Assheton, M. A., D. Sc., F. L. S., F. Z. S., on October 23, 1915, at the comparatively early age of 51, Zoology has lost an inspiring teacher and investigator, vertebrate embryology one of her most brilliant exponents—one whom she could ill spare—and his friends a lovable, unselfish colleague. The second son of the late Ralph Assheton and Emily Augusta, daughter of the late Joseph Feilden, of Witton Park, Blackburn, Richard Assheton came of a very old Lancashire family, and was born at Downham Hall, Clitheroe, in 1863. He was educated at Eton, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in October, 1883. He elected to read for the Natural Science tripos, choosing zoology as one of his subjects. F. M. Balfour had met with his tragic death in the Alps in the July of the preceding year, and had been succeeded in the direction of the School of Animal Morphology and Embryology by his friend and pupil, Adam Sedgwick; and there can be no doubt that it was Sedgwick’s teaching, permeated as it was by the stimulus and inspiration of Balfour’s work, that determined Assheton’s future career. He took his degree with first-class honours in 1886, but, being blessed with a sufficiency of private means, he was not under the necessity of immediately seeking a teaching post, and so on leaving Cambridge he went on an extended voyage round the world, visiting, amongst other places, Australia and New Zealand.