Eldest son of Mr Peter Denny, head of the old-established firm of William Denny & Bros., Leven Shipyard, Dumbarton. Mr DENNY was born at Dumbarton in 1847, and was educated at the High School of Edinburgh, under the late Mr John Carmichael, one of its most distinguished teachers. In his seventeenth year, he left the High School, and entered on a course of practical training as a shipbuilder in Leven Shipyard, serving for stated terms in the various departments. Since 1870 he has been a partner, and of late the managing partner, in the shipbuilding firm, and he has also shared in the partnership of the separate engineering business of Messrs Denny & Company. In addition to discharging the many arduous duties pertaining to his business position, Mr DENNY is enabled to take a prominent part in the proceedings of several of the professional societies with which he is connected. His whole theoretical training has been acquired in business, his previous education having been of a purely classical nature. In Mr DENNY this experience has been eminently fruitful of results, evidence of which may be seen in the part he has taken—both personally and as representing his firm—in various important movements dealt with in the present work. Early in the present year, on a Committee being formed by the Board of Trade to enquire into the subject of the Load Line of Vessels, Mr DENNY was appointed a member. [Illustration: Wm. Denny (signature) INK-PHOTO, SPRAGUE & C^o. LONDON.] PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. WILLIAM JOHN. WILLIAM JOHN, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF NAVAL ARCHITECTURE AND MARINE ENGINEERING; MEMBER OF COUNCIL OF THE INSTITUTION OF NAVAL ARCHITECTS; MEMBER OF THE IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE.