ferred to the Cotteswold district, which he examined up to Bath, and afterwards surveyed a large part of Dorset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, with the Isle of Wight, besides some of the Wealden area, Berkshire, and Essex, rising ultimately in 1872 to the position of director for England and Wales. His field work was admirable in quality, for he was no less patient than accurate in unravelling a complicated district — one of those men, in short, who lay the foundations on which his successors can build, and whose services to British geology are more lasting than showy.
He retired from the survey in July 1888, and died on 14 June 1889, He married on 22 Oct. 1863 Eliza Harrison, second daughter of David Harrison, a London solicitor, and to them four children were born, two sons and as many daughters; they and the widow surviving him.
He was elected F.G.S. in 1843 and F.R.S. in 1862, was an honorary member of sundry societies, and received the order of SS. Maurice and Lazarus. His separate papers Are few in number — about eight — and during his later years he suffered from deafness, which prevented him from taking part in the business of societies. Bat his mark is made on several of the maps and other publications of the Geological Survey, more especially in the memoir of parts of Berkshire and Hampshire (a joint production), and in that admirable one, 'The Geology of the Isle of Wight,' almost all of which was from his pen. He contributed also to sundry publications, official and otherwise, and wrote or edited the following books: 1. 'Glossary of Mineralogy,' 1861. 2. 'Underground Life' (translation, with additions of 'La Vie Souterraine,' by L. Simonin), 1869. 3. 'The World before the Deluge' (a translation, with additions, of a work by L. Figuier), 1872.
[Obituary notice by H. B. W[oodward], with a list of papers and books in Geological Magazine, 1889, p. 381, and information from Mrs. Bristow.]
BRISTOWE, JOHN SYER (1827–1895), physician, born in Camberwell on 19 Jan. 1827, was the eldest son of John Syer Bristowe, a medical practitioner in Camberwell, and Mary Chesshyre his wife. He was educated at Enfield and King's College schools, and entered at St. Thomas's Hospital as a medical student in 1840. Here he took most of the principal prizes, securing the highest distinction, the treasurer's gold medal, in 1848, and in the same year he obtained the gold medal of the Apothecaries' Society for botany. In 1849 he was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and on 2 Aug. 1849 he received the licence of the Society of Apothecaries. In 1850 he took the degree of M.B. of the university of London, gaining the scholarship and medal in surgery and the medals in anatomy and materia medica; in 1852 he was admitted M.D. of the London University.
In 1849 he was house surgeon at St. Thomas's Hospital, and in the following year he was appointed curator of the museum and pathologist to the hospital. He was elected assistant physician in 1854, and during the next few years he held several teaching posts, being appointed lecturer on botany in 1859, on materia medica inl860, on general anatomy and physiology in I860, on pathology in 1870. In 1860 he was elected full physician, and in 1876 he became lecturer on medicine, a post which he held until his retirement in 1892, when he became consulting physician to the hospital.
He served many important offices at the Royal College of Physicians. Elected a fellow in 1858, he was an examiner in medicine in 1869 and 1870. In 1872 he was Croonian lecturer, choosing for his subject 'Disease and its Medical Treatment;' in 1879 he was Lumleian lecturer on 'The Pathological Relations of Voice and Speech.' He was censor in 1876, 1886, 1887, 1888, and senior censor in 1889. He was examiner in medicine at the universities of Oxford and London, at the Royal College of Surgeons, and at the war office. He was also medical officer of health for Camberwell (1856-95). physician to the Commercial Union Assurance Company, and to Westminster school.
In 1881 he was elected F.R.S., and the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him at the tercentenary of the Edinburgh University in 1884. He was president of the Pathological Society of London in 1885, of the Neurological Society in 1891, and of the Medical Society of London in 1893. In this year he delivered the Lettsomian lectures on 'Syphilitic Affections of the Nervous System.' He was also president of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, of the Hospitals Association, and of the metropolitan counties' branch of the British Medical Association. In 1887 his term of office as physician to St. Thomas's Plospital having expired, he was appointed for a further term of five years at the unanimous request of his colleagues.
Bristowe died on 20 Aug. 1895 at Monmouth, and is buried at Norwood cemetery. A three-quarter-length portrait by his daughter, Miss Beatrice M. Bristowe, hangs in the
