THE LATE WILLIAM DENTON.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3830, 25 October 1883, Page 4

THE LATE WILLIAM DENTON.

The death in Ncav Guinea of Mr AVilliam Denton, who accompanied Captain Armit, the Argus special correspondent, in and exploring expedition, will cause much re<n-ct among a whole circle of his friends in New Zealand. Throughout New Zealand in his lecturing tour he made many friends, and one of these has scut a few notes about his career:— ... AVilliam Denton was an Englishman, having been born at Darlington ou January 8 1823. His father was a Methodist, and poor. The mother was, however, a woman of some education, and had been a schoolmistress. Young AVilliam went to school at three years of age, and at five could read the Bible. At eight he had to earn his own living, and got half-a-erown a week for working for a currier. Though working ho kept on his studies, and quite early he began to study g«ology. His first public appearance as a speaker was as an advocate o teetotalism. Ho had left tho currier s, and had been apprenticed in a machine-shop, but this he had to leave, as when he was ordered to make brewing machinery lie declined for conscience sake. Then he read George Coonibes' " Constitution of Man," took to school-teaching, was driven out of his position because of his heresy ; became a clerk on a railway—this also he was driven from because of his religious views, which had ceased to be Molhodisti", and had become Radical Unitarian. After this, when he was about 21. ho went to America, aud there turned his attention to many things—school teaching, lumpers' work, clerking, lecturing, One biographer says of him: "iNonc worked harder ; and few had worse luck. His views were radical in everything. lie disagreed with many geologists. Ho was a cosmic fliL-i.it, and a spiritualist, and he rejected the authority of the Bible. As an author ho was rather a voluminous writer, having written more than a dozen works, besides many phamphlets. Ho was most abstemious in his living, drinking not only no alcohol, but no tea or coffee ; smoking no tobacco. No name save that of " radical " could here describe his position, as lie was uncompromising, and declined to sanction anything, even indirectly, he thought wrong. He had a fine private museum in his homo°at AVellcslov, 31ass., and has perliaps the best collection of fosril American insects in tho States. His object in visiting New Guinea, was fo prepare himself tor a work he contemplated on "Island Life." He disagreed with AVallace's conclusions, as, being a believer in spontaneous generation, bethought the efforts of evoluiiuni.-ls to prove that at one lime islands bad been united to the continents was not necessary, and absurd. As a private acquaintance _ho was charming. He was modest, well informed, and"pleasing in his conversation, andhada kindliucssof nature that manifested itself even in the criticisms of his opponents If he was bitter at times in his attacks on orthodoxy, we must remember how often his life has beon clouded by persecution.