# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 37/September 1890/Obituary Notes

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Sir Edwin Chadwick, whom an English paper styles the "father of modern sanitary science," died in London, July 5th, ninety years old. He was born in 1800, near Rochdale, of an old family, famous for the long lives attained by some of its members, lie was admitted as a barrister in 1830, and also engaged in literary work; and, from the appearance of an article on Life Assurance in the Westminster Review, his life is most largely a record of efforts to improve the conditions of health. Among the direct or indirect fruits of his activity were the establishment of industrial schools for destitute children; provisions for the care of aged poor and infirm; reforms in workhouse systems; the ten-hour law; the half-time system for children; the first sanitary commission; and the establishment of the Registrar-General's office. He was a permanent Commissioner on the Local Government Board; did good service in Crimean and Indian questions; and was President at different times of Sanitary Congresses, of the Society of Sanitary Inspectors, and of the Economical Section at meetings of the British Association. On the 2d of March, 1889, his ninetieth birthday, he was given a dinner by the Association of Sanitary Inspectors. A little before this time he was made a Knight of the Bath.
General John Charles Frémont died in New York, July 13th, in his seventy-eighth year. The political and military incidents of his later life have somewhat obscured the recollection of what he did for the advancement of knowledge in the earlier period of his career. The region of the Rocky Mountains was then practically unknown. He undertook in 1842 to explore it and open an overland route to the Pacific. In 1843 he led an expedition up the valley of the Platte, explored the Great Salt Lake, etc., to Fort Vancouver, near the mouth of the Columbia River. On the return journey he came back through the Great Basin and the South Pass. In 1845 he conducted an expedition to explore the Sierra Nevada, in California, in connection with which he became engaged in military and political complications. In 1853 he led a party at his own expense to the Pacific, by a new route, near latitude 38° north. Full accounts of his discoveries were published in his reports to the Government and in other books; and though the regions he visited are familiar enough now, the works had then all the freshness of novelty. For his services as an explorer he received gold medals from the King of Prussia and the Royal Geographical Society.
Sir Warington Smyth, Professor of Mining at the Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, London, died June 19th, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was born in Naples; spent his early boyhood in Italy; was sent to the English schools and was graduated from Cambridge; took a prominent position as a scientific authority on mining; was appointed in 1851, on the nomination of Sir Henry De la Beche, lecturer on mineralogy and mining; was made mineral surveyor to the Duchy of Cornwall and inspector of crown mines; and was invariably consulted by the Government on mining matters. His contributions to geological journals, reports, etc., were numerous, but have not been collected. He was the author of a Rudimentary Treatise on Coal and Coal-Mining, and of a Book of Travels.
Mr. W. Kitchen, for fifteen years Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the Royal College of Surgeons, and President of the Royal Microscopical Society in 1871 and 1872, died early in July. He was distinguished by his investigations on the minute foraminifera and the morphology of the vertebrate skull.
Patrick Barry, one of the most distinguished American horticulturists, died at his home in Rochester, N. Y., in June. He was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1816, and came to America when twenty years old. He was especially interested and efficient in pomology, and his Fruit Garden has long been one of the most valuable standard works on that subject. He was for more than thirty years President of the Western New York Horticultural Society, and was a member of the Board of Control of the State Agricultural Experiment Station. He was for several years editor of The Horticulturist, when it was the leading periodical in that branch, and afterward horticultural editor of the Genesee Farmer. "As an author and editor," says Garden and Forest, "he always had some instructive message, and he always delivered it in a way that compelled attention"; and "it might be said that his influence has reached every orchard and garden of the country."