In Plough Court, Lombard Street, there was a firm well-known and highly respected. It was a firm long remarkable for the extraordinary philanthropic activity of its practices, and for the excellence of its chemicals. Mr. Allen, the senior partner, was a lecturer in chemistry at Guy’s Hospital, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a personal and intimate friend of the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Sussex, Lord Brougham, Sir Fowell Buxton, the Gurneys, Thomas Clarckson, and many other of the leading philanthropic and public characters of the past generation. He was also a minister among the Quakers, and a prime mover in founding a host of schools, asylums, and benevolent institutions. Another partner in the firm was the late Luke Ronard, F.R.S., the eminent meteorologist, who was also a preacher among the Quakers till the last portion of his life, when he joined the communion of the Plymouth Brethren, with whom also he was an active labourer in good efforts of various kinds. A third partner of the firm was the late Mr. John Thomas, who, after his very accurate and skilful scientific researches had gained him a competency, retired from business, and devoted the remainder of his life to an extraordinary series of efforts, in conjunction with Mr. William Ewart, M.P., Mr. Barret Lennard, M.P., Mr. John Sydney Taylor, the editor of the _Morning Herald_, the Right Hon. Stephen Lushington, D.C.L., and the late Mr. Peter Bedford, of Croydon, for the removal of the punishment of death from the numerous offences, some of them very trivial, for which it was at one time inflicted. A writer in the _Sunday at Home_, in the year 1866, remarks, that it is no exaggeration to say, that the splendid triumphs of mercy, which have rendered the reign of King William IV. for ever illustrious in history, were, either directly or indirectly, largely owing to the strenuous, continuous, and truly wonderful labours of Mr. Barry and this small group of his philanthropic coadjutors. Such were the partners in the firm at Plough Court, a house frequented by all classes of men—by princes of the blood-royal, by peers and statesmen, by scientific discoverers and professors, by missionaries and preachers, by schoolmasters and authors, by reformed criminals and escaped slaves. It became a centre of conference and movement for much of the metropolitan philanthropy during the reigns of George IV. and William IV.