We, the undersigned students of the Owens College, who have had the privilege of being your pupils, desire at the close of your active work as a teacher to offer you some recognition of the value of the services you have rendered to your College during the time you have laboured as one of its professors. For upwards of thirty years you have had the control and direction of the chemical department of the Owens College. You leave it the best organized and best equipped school of chemistry in the kingdom, numbering its students by hundreds, and the acknowledged model of the many similar institutions which the success of your own school has called into existence. No place of chemical instruction in the country has exercised so profound an influence as that of which you have been the moving and directing force, and with which your name will always be connected. Its influence on the industrial welfare of the community is seen from the number of responsible positions held by your students in the district. Its influence on educational progress may be judged from the number of your pupils who hold important positions as teachers of chemistry. As a centre of chemical research you have made the Owens College known all over the world, and your books on chemical science form the standard works, not only in this country, but in many others. The genial and sympathetic interest which you always showed in the lives and work of your students is gratefully remembered by all of us, and it has bound us to you by a personal tie such as rarely unites a teacher and his students. Whilst we have viewed with regret the severance of your active connection with the institution for which you have done so much, both in moulding its academical organization and in consolidating its work, we trust you may long be spared to continue in the wider sphere of political and public life those efforts which have already contributed so largely to the intellectual advancement of the people of this country. We beg your acceptance of the portrait which accompanies this address as a token of our affectionate respect, and in grateful recollection of many kindly acts which have endeared you to us all.