Mrs. Vince, senior, was a member of a very good family in Sussex, and was a woman of superior mental powers. She is described as a very industrious, careful, motherly woman; one to whom all the neighbours applied for advice and assistance in any trouble or emergency, and never in vain, for her heart was full of sympathy and her brain of fertility of resource. She was a pious, humble, God-fearing woman, who did her duty; trained her children carefully; set them the example of a truthful, practical, and loving Christian life; and had the satisfaction of seeing the results of her excellent example and precepts carried into full life and activity in the career of her only son. Such were the parents of Charles Vince, and such the influences which surrounded his childhood. He was a bright, intelligent boy; he never had any trouble with his lessons, and was remarkably quick in arithmetic. His father was very proud of him, and he was sent to the best school in the place. It was kept by a nephew of the celebrated William Cobbett. "Tommy" Cobbett, as he was always called, seems to have been a favourable specimen of a country schoolmaster in those days. On his leaving the town, about 1837 or 1838, a Mr. Harrington took his place, and Charles Vince remained as a pupil for a time, but Harrington went to old Mr. Vince to say that he felt he was dishonest in taking his money, for "Charles ought to take my place and teach me." Upon leaving school, Charles was duly bound apprentice to Messrs. Mason and Jackson, where he was taught by his father. Without indentures of apprenticeship in those days, an artificer had no status in his trade; yet it would seem, in this case, that the "binding" was regarded by each party as little more than a necessary formality, for the youth did not spend the whole of his time in the service of his nominal employers. He was always with his father, and Sir George Barlow took a great fancy to him. He worked on at his trade, however, for some years, and only left the workman's bench to assume the vocation of a teacher.