The celebration was held on April 22, 1904, in the beautiful Whitworth Hall of the Victoria University in the presence of a large and enthusiastic gathering of former students and colleagues, and of friends who had journeyed to Manchester to present addresses. Of all these addresses, the one, he says in his autobiography, that touched him most nearly was that from his former pupils. It ran as follows: We, the undersigned, all of whom have the honour to number ourselves among your pupils, desire on the occasion of the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the date of your graduation as a Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg to offer you our hearty congratulations, and to express our pleasure that you are able to be with us in health and strength to receive this testimony of our gratitude and esteem. The half-century which has elapsed since the day of your Doctor promotion _summa-cum-laude_, has witnessed an extraordinary development in that branch of natural knowledge to which you have particularly devoted yourself. We recall with pride in how large a measure your own labours have contributed to that growth—by your work as an original investigator, by your literary productions, by your remarkable and almost unexampled success as a teacher, by the influence you have exerted in the organization and direction of societies concerned with Science, by your unceasing and well-directed efforts to secure for Science its due position in the scheme of National Education and the fuller recognition of its relations to the well-being of civilized communities. It was your good fortune at the outset of your career to come under the influence of illustrious chemical philosophers—Graham, Williamson, Bunsen. Your good fortune has been our great gain. You have not only worthily upheld the traditions associated with such names, but you have inspired others by your example. Your influence is to be seen in the creation of the great School of Chemistry in which you have laboured for thirty years, and in which you taught hundreds of pupils; it is equally felt in the many similar places throughout this kingdom which are modelled upon the lines you indicated, and which are to-day actuated by your method and example. We gratefully recall the obligations that we are under to you as our teacher, and we cherish the memory of the signal services you have rendered to the Institution of which we are proud to be members. You came to it in the days of its precarious infancy, you assisted to rear it into a vigorous youth, sharing its aspirations, and stimulating its endeavours; you behold it now of age, and entering upon a great career.