Manx Memories and Movements, by Samuel Norris, Isle of Man: The Norris Modern Press, Ltd., 12s. 6d.

MR. NORRIS is an English journalist who, in 1894, when not yet twenty years old, landed in the Isle of Man.

He has lived there ever since. He is a distinguished member of the House of Keys, to which he was elected nearly twenty years ago. This book is the record of his life during his forty-four years in the island and of the part he has played in the agitations for many reforms in its affairs.

One chapter will be read with special interest by all connected with the life- boat service. Over thirty years ago Mr. Norris, struck by the "unmarked and neglected" state of the grave, in Douglas, of Lieut.-Col. Sir William Hillary, Bt., founder of the Institution, set himself to collect information about Hillary's life in the island.

Hillary had settled there in 1808, at the age of thirty-seven. There, in 1823, he issued the appeal which led to the founding of the Institution in the following year. There, before and after the Institution was founded, he helped to rescue hundreds of lives from shipwreck. There he died in 1847 at the age of seventy-six, saddened and impoverished by the failure of a bank, of which he was a shareholder.

All that he was able to discover about Hillary Mr. Norris published in 1906 and 1907 in a series of articles in the Manx Patriot, a journal which he edited. These articles he very kindly placed at the disposal of the Institution, and the information they contained was used in an article on Hillary in The Life-boat for May, 1921, and in Britain's Life-boats, the history of the Institution, published in 1923.

Men Who Knew Hillary.

Mr. Norris has found no new facts since his original articles appeared over thirty years ago, but he claims to be the only person alive who has received re- collections and descriptions of Hillary from two men who knew him. Both these men were, at the time (between 1900 and 1906), nearly ninety years old. One of them was Sir William Leece Drinkwater, who had been a deemster (a judge of the Manx High Court). He wrote to Mr. Norris in 1906 that he remembered meeting Hillary over eighty years before, when he was himself a boy. His memories were what a boy's would be, that Hillary was of middle height and spare, and that he was kind in manner. He drove the boy in his gig and told him the names of the mountains that they passed. He remembered also seeing him at a street corner in Douglas talking with other men: "There had been a storm on the previous night, and the life-boat had been damaged, and I understood that Sir William was expressing himself as much troubled about it." Slight as they are, such recollections are worth having.

One Who Worked with Hillary.

The other man who knew Hillary was Mr. Samuel Harris, High Bailiff (stipendiary magistrate) of Douglas.

His recollections are more substantial.

As a young law-student he had helped Hillary in his schemes, and he was able to give Mr. Norris dates and other particulars about his life. These, Mr.

Norris says, were in "an extract from a book, evidently a year book, dated at the top of the first sheet, '1844.'" Mr. Norris was unable to identify the authority, but claims that the value of the book lies in the fact that it was published in Hillary's life-time. The biographical facts which it contains have already appeared in The Life-boat and Britain's Life-boats. There is, however, one new fact of interest.

Mr. Norris quotes this contemporary book as saying that Hillary " personally aided in saving 509 lives (the crews of 29 vessels), for which five gold and silver medals were awarded." Mr. Norris regrets that on the memorial tablet placed by the Institu- tion on Hillary's tomb in 1921, the number of lives which he rescued is given as 305, The authority for this is an article on Hillary in an early issue of The Life-boat. This article in the fifth number, published on 1st July,1852, five years after Hillary's death, speaks of him as "assisting to save 300 lives in Douglas Bay." It may, of course, be that these are the lives rescued by Hillary after the founding of the Institution in 1824 and do not include lives rescued before then. On the other hand the article in The Life- boat gives names of vessels and dates of eleven rescues in which Hillary took part between the years 1825 and 1832, the year, it was believed, of his last service. In all but two of these services the lives rescued are given. Their total is 196.

The records of the Institution show that Hillary was four times awarded its gold medal, the first time as its founder and the other three times for gallantry in rescuing life.* More interesting than any biographical fact which Mr. Harris was able to give Mr. Norris, is that, nearly sixty years after Hillary's death, he could not speak of him without deep emotion.

Mr. Norris writes: "The old man's face took on a hallowed and pained expression as his * In the extract from Mr. Harris, which Mr, Norris quotes, it is not clear if the " five gold and silver medals awarded," for the rescue of 509 lives in which Hillary took part, are medals awarded to Hillary only, or to Hillary and others who shared in the rescues. Whichever is meant, the figure does not agree with the Institution's list of medals awarded.

mind looked back over the intervening years. Tears welled up into his eyes, and then coursed down his ruddy cheeks as he indicated, rather than described, his memories of Sir William Hillary.

"He said he was a man of military bearing, of more than medium height, with high forehead and features which marked him out as a leader of men; with kindly sympathy shown in every lineament of his face and in his eyes.

"The memory of the man and the tragedy which had overshadowed his later years and burial, made the subject too painful for quiet reflection." Mr. Norris himself says how deeply moved he has been by his study of Hillary's remarkable career, the tragic circumstances of his last years and of his: death, and the neglect of his memory in the Isle of Man. So moved indeed! that he feels, when he writes or speaks of him, " as in the presence of a personal friend." The Institution itself, and all .con- nected with it, must always feel a lively gratitude to Mr. Norris for ail- that he has done to discover the events of Hillary's life, to arouse popular inter- est in his career, and to ensure for him? the place which he deserves to hold in the history of the Isle of Man and of" the whole British Isles..