Adolphus William Ward

“ In 1872 the Manchester Medical School was incorporated with the Owens College, after negotiations in which Greenwood displayed much tact; and two years later the new medical buildings of the college were opened.
The most important events in the history of the college during the later years of Greenwood's official life were the admission of women students into the college and the foundation of the Victoria University. He was no friend in principle to conducting the higher education of women on the same lines as that of men, and objected (at all events as a rule) to joint or mixed classes. ”

“ Two of the earlier of Nichol's occasional courses on English literature (in 1868 and 1869) were, at Jowett's request, redelivered at Oxford. From 1866 he was one of the most distinguished pioneers of the movement afterwards known as university extension, and he lectured with conspicuous success in many English and Scottish towns. Indeed, as a popular lecturer on literature he had in his day few, if any, rivals. ”

“ In June 1857 Christie had been called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn, and he at once commenced practice at Manchester as an equity draughtsman and conveyancer, and in the chancery court of the county palatine of Lancaster. His practice continuously grew, till at the time of his retirement in 1877 he was the leader of the Manchester equity bar. ”

“ NICHOL, JOHN (1833–1894) , professor of English literature and author, born on 8 Sept. 1883 at Montrose, where his father was then rector of the academy, was only son of the astronomer, John Pringle Nichol [q. v.] , by his first wife. From 1836 onwards Glasgow was his home,and from 1842 to 1848 he went to school at the Western Academy, without, according to his own account, deriving much advantage from it. His imaginative powers were, however, early stimulated by foreign travel, and by excursions nearer home, especially in Arran. In 1848 he entered the university of Glasgow. ”

“ Before he left Glasgow Nichol printed for private circulation a volume of poems of remarkable promise, entitled 'Leaves' (Edinburgh, 1852) .
In 1865, at the late age of twenty-two, Nichol entered Balliol College, Oxford. There in the following year he gained one of the Glasgow Snell exhibitions. He graduated in 1800 with first-class honours in the final classical school. At first Oxford pleased him, but disenchantment and bitterness followed, although he conceived a lasting admiration for Benjamin Jowett [q. v. Suppl.] ”

“ Several of his pupils subsequently attained literary distinction ; but more important was the general influence, incalculable alike in breadth and depth, exercised by him during a quarter of a century upon the progress of culture among the general body of his students. ”

“ Andrews in 1859, he privately printed a volume of 'Fragments of Criticism' (Edinburgh, 1860) , consisting of condensed Oxford lectures on ancient philosophy and of English literary criticisms, partly reprinted from the 'Westminster Review' and from university periodicals, especially the audacious 'Undergraduate Papers.' The volume included noticeable estimates of Carlyle, whose influence Nichol in these days reflected with striking force, Tennyson, Browning, in the tardy popularisation of whose work Nichol was pre-eminently instrumental, and his intimate friend, Sydney Thompson Dobell [q. v.] ”

“ Unfortunately, not long after he had settled in Surrey, his health began to fail, and consecutive literary labour gradually became difficult and then impossible. Among his publications not already mentioned were an edition, with translation, of the 'Annales Cestrienses' for the Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, of which society he was for many years president (1887) , and 'The Letters of Sir Thomas Copley to Queen Elizabeth and her Ministers' (Roxburghe Club, 1897) . ”

“ Shortly afterwards he settled at Eastbourne, where he occupied himself with literary pursuits, including a revision of the text of Wordsworth, his favourite author through life. He died at Eastbourne on 25 Sept, 1894. ”