William West Jr

He travelled to India to begin a career in which it was hoped that he might discover ways to identify and control fungoid diseases which were attacking indigo plants, which were farmed for commercial dyes.

At ten years of age, on his own initiative and without the knowledge of his parents, he sat for examination and won a scholarship at the Bradford Technical College, and he was on admission one of the youngest students ever admitted.

[3]At Bradford Technical College in 1887, at the age of 12, West passed examinations in inorganic chemistry, and magnetism and electricity, both at "advanced stage, first class".

[4] "His botanical acumen was so well developed that at the early age of 14 he was able to set the British Museum curators right as to the determination of an obscure Elatine displayed in the public galleries".

[5] A national scholarship entitle[d] the holder to free admission to lectures, laboratories and instruction free of all cost during the teaching terms for three years, at either the Normal School of Science and Royal College of Mines, London, or the Royal College of Science, Dublin, at the option of the holder, with £80 (equivalent to £11,169 in 2023) a year for maintenance and travelling expenses in addition.

[6][5]West gained a foundation scholarship, when only sixteen years old, to St John's College, Cambridge,[1] and began his studies there at age seventeen.

[1][2] He was employed there for two years, between Michaelmas 1890 to August 1892, "revising and incorporating the Fresh-Water Algae of Hassal's Herbarium, and of numerous published sets.

[3] He also published papers in The Journal of Botany: "One treated of some new species of algae which he described from Plankton collected in the Atlantic; another written jointly with Dr A.B.

[3] The Englishman's Overland Mail reported: "There is something very tragic in the sudden close of a career whose opening chapters were both interesting and brilliant".

[2] The Bradford Observer said:[3] The work which lay before [West] in India in the study of the fungoid diseases which attack the indigo and other plants of commercial value promised ample opportunities of adding to that reputation.

[3]William Denison Roebuck commented in The Naturalist:[1] [West's] personal characteristics included not only extreme accuracy and wide grasp, and the extraordinary retentive memory which so greatly facilitated his botanical studies, but a most amiable and lovable disposition which endeared him to all who had the privilege of knowing him, and who consequently feel deeply and grievously the weight of the affliction which the untimely close of his career brings upon us".