to fits of depression and irritability which sometimes made him appear impatient. In 1852, on his resignation of the appointment of visiting physician, Conolly’s connection with Hanwell practically ceased, and a piece of plate and his own portrait by Sir W. Gordon were presented to him at a public meeting by Lord Shaftesbury. In his reply on this occasion Dr. Conolly said: “Those who know me well will believe me when I say there never was an occasion when the sense of merit was less reflected from the breast of the recipient of a public honour, than it is from me at this moment.” He further stated that when he had first heard of the establishment of Hanwell Asylum, he was seized with a restless desire to become one day its head. Many objects of philanthropy had Dr. Conolly’s untiring advocacy, both before and after his retirement from Hanwell. Public middle-class lunatic asylums, the education of medical men in mental diseases, the establishment of idiot asylums, especially that at Earlswood, were among these. He was the first doctor applied to by Mrs. Plumbe in regard to the foundation of Earlswood, and his co-operation with Dr. Andrew Reed was of the most essential service to the enterprise. Dr. Langdon Down, formerly Medical Superintendent at Earlswood, wrote in regard to Conolly: “His visits were the most refreshing incident of my recollection in connection with the asylum. Entering on my work (in 1858) as an untried man, and finding myself allied to an institution which had become unpopular at the Lunacy Board, I was mainly decided on holding a position which had so much to overwhelm one by the influence of Dr. Conolly. That influence was magical. The humility of his character was only equalled by the real love he manifested for the mentally afflicted. “At the visits of the Board of Management, he would steal away from his colleagues, and was to be found holding loving intercourse with the little members of my charge in a way that one has never seen before or since. Moreover, he so encouraged every official in his or her work, that the savour of his visit lasted till he again returned.... For myself, I have often had to seek his counsel, and never without being struck with his judgment and the fascination of his influence, the high resolve he inspired in one, and what willingness he exhibited to maintain, co-equally with the responsibility, the power of the Medical Superintendent, and thus to prevent a repetition of those evils which he had so bitterly to lament in his own experience.”