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may be inferred from a remark be was in the habit of making to his
friends to the effect that he remembered as a boy having shot snipe in
Highbury Fields.
Mr. W. H. Wimberley, a representative on the Vestry of the Ward
of Highbury, died on February 24th, 1892.
Dr. Charles Meymott Tidy, who had for nearly 20 years acted as
the Medical Officer of Health for the Parish, died on the 15th March,
1892, at the comparatively early age of 49. In dealing with the career
of a man so eminent in his profession as Dr. Tidy the following remarks
from the Islington Gazette may with advantage be quoted:—
Dr. Tidy, who was appointed Medical Officer of Health in 1872, in succession to
Professor Corfield, was one of th® most distinguished analytical chemists of his time,
and by his death, which took place after a protracted illness, at his residence,
3, Mandeville-place, Manchester-square, sanitary science loses a powerful demonstrator.
He was early distinguished by his facility in popularising science, and attained
considerable popularity as a lecturer to literary institutes all over the kingdom. On
taking the appointment vacated, after a short experience, by Dr. Corfield, he had to
sustain the prestige which Dr. Ballard had created for Islington as one of the foremost
parishes to apply hygienic principles to its administration. He entered into the work
with characteristic enthusiasm, and ere long his racy and pregnant reports became
text-books amongst sanitarians. Meanwhile he pursued his chemical researches with
such success that he became in constant request all over the kingdom as an expert,
and he figured in several great trials where the point to determine was the presence
of human blood. The Government largely utilised, his services, and although at times
there were local objections, born of the narrower Vestry mind, to his extending his
usefulness over the borders of Islington, his paramount usefulness to his country
triumphed over small-minded prejudice. Before committees of the Houses of
Parliament his evidence was in constant request, and a testimony of his influence was
given before a committee of the House of Lords on Wednesday, March 16th, 1892,
when Mr.Pember, Q.C., announcing his death, said his opinion carried almost unlimited,
weight on water and sanitary questions with Parliamentary committees: while he
was a household word with local authorities throughout the country. He held several
scientific appointments, including, we believe, the professorship of Hygiene at the
London Hospital. His twenty years' work in Islington stamped him as not merely a
theoretical enthusiast, but a thoroughly practical sanitarian. He astonished some of
his commentators by his scepticism as to the testimony of averages as demonstrating
the existence of particular effects, and on one occasion he almost disheartened sanitarians
by an attempt to prove that where mortality was reduced by the stamping
B