Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/142

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BIRDWOOD.
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and dissertations on Greek, Roman, and British antiquities, numismatics, and ethnography, and assisted in the editing of cuneiform inscriptions. In addition to these he has published in the Asiatic Journal translations from the Chinese, several papers in the "Transactions of' the Royal Society of Literature," the Archæologia, the Revue Archéologique, the Archaologische Zeitung, the Zeitschrift für ægyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde, and the works of various societies. He also contributed many articles to the "English Encyclopædia." The late King of Prussia presented him with a copy of the great work of Lepsius, the "Denkmäler," for his Egyptian researches. Dr. Birch's other publications are:—the "Gallery of Antiquities," 1842; the text of Owen Jones's "Views on the Nile," 1843; "Catalogue of Greek Vases" (with Mr. Newton), 1851; "Introduction to the Study of the Hieroglyphics," 1857; a "History of Ancient Pottery," 1858; "Description of the Papyrus of Nash-khem," 1863; the "Rhind Papyri," 1866; and "Egypt from the Earliest Times," 1875. He edited "The Records of the Past," from 1873–80; Wilkinson's "Manners and Customs," 1878; and Eber's "Egypt," 1879. Dr. Birch presided over the Congress of Orientalists, held in London in Sept., 1874. The German Emperor conferred on him the Order of the Crown, and the University of Cambridge its honorary LL.D. degree, in 1875, and he was made honorary Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, in the same year, and D.C.L. of the same university in 1876, in recognition of his exertions on that occasion. He was appointed Rede Lecturer at Cambridge for the year 1876.

BIRDWOOD, Sir George Christopher Molesworth, M.D., C.S.I., eldest son of General Christopher Birdwood, late of the 3rd Native Infantry, and Commissary-General, Bombay, was born at Belgaum, Bombay, Dec. 8, 1832. He was educated at Plymouth New Grammar School and at the University where he took the degree of M.B., and passed the usual examination of the College of Surgeons in 1854. He was appointed to the medical service of the East India Company on their Bombay establishment in the same year. His first charge was of the Southern Mahratta Horse, Kalludghee, in 1855. Later he was transferred to the 1st Battery 2nd Brigade of Artillery at Sholapore, where he was also at different times in charge of the 8th Madras Cavalry, 3rd Bombay Native Infantry, and the Civil Station. In 1856 he was sent to the Persian Gulf in medical charge of the Company's steamship Ajdaha and the detachment of Her Majesty's 64th Regiment on board, and was present at the bombardment and capture of Mohammarah, for which he received the medal and clasp given for the Persian War of 1856–57. On his return to Bombay in April, 1857, he was appointed Acting Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Grant Medical College, and from that date to his leaving India continued to be connected with the college almost without interruption in the chairs successively of Anatomy and Physiology and Botany and Materia Medica. In the same year Dr. Birdwood was appointed Curator of the Government Central Museum at Bombay. With the assistance of the late eminent Hindoo physician and scholar, Dr. Bhawoo Dhajee, and the liberal cooperation of the leading native gentlemen of all religions and races he succeeded in establishing the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Victoria Gardens in Bombay. In 1867 Dr. Birdwood was sent by Sir Bartle Frere, at the express desire of the leading merchants of Bombay, as Special Commissioner for the Government, to