“His tenure of office, viz., twenty-two years, as Conservator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, was a splendid record of original and laborious work, of great administrative capacity, and of unvarying courtesy to visitors. The museum was most popular under his management. There, amidst the almost unrivalled collections, the tall, fair-haired, and earnest worker was daily to be found, minutely studying, comparing and measuring, or giving directions for the extension, arrangement, and classification of the varied and valuable contents. From a scientific point of view no post could have been better adapted to the man or the man to the post. With many and varied lines of study lying conveniently around him, in the quietude of an office less conspicuous and exacting than the British Museum, in the full vigour of manhood, and in the midst of sympathetic seniors, friends, and assistants, it can well be imagined that Sir William’s powers attained great development, and that perhaps he never felt so full of happiness and satisfaction with his original work. It could not well be otherwise. His conscientious devotion to duty, his remarkable skill in devising methods of mounting, his artistic eye, his tact with subordinates, and the esteem in which he was held by zoologists and comparative anatomists at home and abroad, give a clue to his subsequent career, and show the training of one of the most accomplished and courtly comparative anatomists our country has produced.” But there was another side to Flower’s work during the greater part of his official connection with the Royal College of Surgeons, and one which brought him into wider and closer contact with the public than was the case with his Conservatorship. This was the delivery of the lectures which form the chief, if not the sole, duty of the Hunterian Professor. According to the statutes of the College, the annual course of lectures, which is short, must be on a different subject each year, but must in all cases be illustrated by preparations in the museum.