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PROPOSED DARWIN MEMORIAL AT SHREWSBURY.

In compliance with a requisition signed by a large number of influential residents, a public meeting, convened by the Mayor (Mr. W. L. Browne), was held at Shrewsbury yesterday afternoon to consider a proposal to raise a memorial to Charles Darwin, the great naturalist, who was the son of a Shrewsbury doctor. The house where he was born, on February 12, 1809, lies above the steep banks of the Severn on the outskirts of the town. A short street of new houses in the vicinity has been called Darwin-street, and a memorial tablet has been placed in the Unitarian chapel in the town bearing an inscription which states that he was in early life a member of the congregation and a constant worshipper there. Darwin was partly educated at Shrewsbury Grammar School.

The meeting was largely attended. A number of letters of apology for absence and of sympathy with the movement were read. One of them was from the Bishop Suffragan of Shrewsbury (the Right Rev. Sir Lovelace Stamer, D.D.), who wrote:—" Darwin's conclusions startled pious minds at first, as though they were subversive of the truth of revelation, but the panic has subsided, and it is recognized that the admission of Darwin's theories does not necessarily involve any contradiction of the inspired story of creation, though it may require a modification of the interpretation most commonly affixed to it."

The MAYOR said that in doing honour to one who had shed an imperishable lustre on his native town they were doing honour to themselves. In addition to the suggestion that a bronze statue of Darwin should be erected in front of the old Grammar School, now the public library and museum, it was proposed to found a scholarship to his memory in connexion with Shrewsbury School. Another suggestion, which had received a great amount of support, was that the movement should be of national and even of worldwide scope, and that the memorial should take the form of a hall of science to be erected in Shrewsbury for the purposes of scientific and technical instruction.

The REV. H. W. Moss, Head Master of Shrewsbury School, proposed "That Shrewsbury, as the birthplace of Charles Darwin, ought to possess an appropriate national memorial of him."

ALDERMAN G. B. LLOYD seconded the motion, which was carried unanimously. It was also resolved that another public meeting should be held for the purpose of considering the best method of carrying out the proposal, and a committee was appointed to make the necessary arrangements.