While still young, Pengelly removed to Torquay, where he spent the remainder of his life. Shortly after arriving there, he opened a small day school on the Pestalozzian system, into which he introduced the novelty of the use of chalk and the blackboard in giving instruction. Beginning with six pupils, the school grew rapidly. He had private pupils, too, and in 1846 these had become so numerous that he gave up his school, and as a special tutor in mathematics and the natural sciences found his life occupation. Some of his pupils became distinguished in after life; while others, like the two Russian princes, nephews of the Czar Alexander II, and Princess Mary, of the Netherlands, all of whom became much attached to him, were famous by reason of their position. His attention was brought for a third time to geology while looking over some books which he thought might be useful to his pupils, when he found one published by the brothers Chambers, which contained a chapter on that science. This was not much, but it was enough to inform him how much had already been done in geology, and, perhaps, to give him a hint of some of the possibilities that lay in it. From this time on, he was ardently interested in geology. The journal of his first visit to London and the British Museum, in 1843, attests how he was becoming absorbed in it. He spent his holidays in geological explorations and in excursions which gradually grew larger, until his position as a geologist was recognized, and he became an authority respecting all points and phenomena which had come under his personal knowledge. A hint dropped to him by Professor Jameson as he was about to visit the Isle of Arran taught him to make his notes of observations on the spot, and greatly helped, his daughter Hester observes in the biography on which we have drawn very largely, "to form those habits of extreme accuracy which characterized all his scientific work." In 1837 Mr. Pengelly assisted in the reorganization of the Torquay Mechanics' Institute, with which he maintained a connection for more than twenty years, and before which he delivered many lectures. In 1844 he participated in the organization of the Torquay Natural History Society, of which he became, in 1851, honorary secretary, and remained so for more than thirty-nine years. "Under his guidance it became a scientific power in the country. Year after year he lectured there, tincturing the locality with his own enthusiasm; and from the society there ultimately sprang the museum in Babbacombe Road, with its admirable collections."