2. Account of the Life and Labours of Dr William Gregory

Extract

Dr Gregory, at the time of his death, which took place on the 24th of April last, was Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, and one of the Secretaries of this Society. He was born on the 25th of December 1803. His father was the late Dr Gregory; for a long time professor of the practice of medicine in the University of Edinburgh. His brothers, James Crawford, who took the degree of medicine in 1824, and died in 1832, and Duncan, who, when he died, was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, were both so highly distinguished for their talents and acquirements as to be worthy representatives of a family of no small distinction in the science and literature of the country; but, in Dr Alison's opinion, Dr William Gregory was the member of the family who, in our day, had shown the greatest original talent and devotion to science for its own sake. His love of science manifested itself at an early period. He had been present at an introductory lecture by Dr Hope, which was illustrated by striking experiments. Several of these experiments he contrived to repeat by means of a rude apparatus which he constructed for the purpose.