net Neptune. The
professorship is not necessarily connected with the Observatory, and
practical astronomy formed no part of George's duties. His lectures
being on advanced mathematics usually attracted but few students; in the
Long Vacation, however, when he habitually gave one of his courses, there
was often a fairly large class. George's relations with his class have
been sympathetically treated by Professor E. W. Brown, {168} than whom no
one can speak with more authority, since he was one of my brother's
favourite pupils.

In the late '70's George began to be appointed to various University
Boards and Syndicates. Thus from 1878-82 he was on the Museums and
Lecture Rooms Syndicate. In 1879 he was placed on the Observatory
Syndicate, of which he became an official member in 1883 on his election
to the Plumian Professorship. In the same way he was on the Special
Board for Mathematics. He was a member of the Financial Board from
1900-1 to 1903-4, and on the Council of the Senate in 1905-6 and 1908-9.
But he never became a professional syndic--one of those virtuous persons
who spend their lives in University affairs. In his obituary of George
(_Nature_, December 12, 1912), Sir Joseph Larmor writes:

In the affairs of the University, of which he was an ornament, Sir
George Darwin made a substantial mark, though it cannot be said that
he possessed the patience in discussion that is sometimes a necessary
condition to taking a share in its administration. But his wide
acquaintance and friendships among the statesmen and men of affairs
of the time, dating often from undergraduate days, gave him openings
for usefulness on a wider plane. Thus, at a time when residents were
bewailing even more than usual the inadequacy of the resources of the
University for the great expansion which the scientific progress of
the age demanded, it was largely on his initiative that, by a
departure from all precedent, an unofficial body was constituted in
1899 under the name of the Cambridge University Association, to
promote the further endowment of the University by interesting its
graduates throughout the Empire in its progress and its more pressing
needs. This important body, which was organised under the strong
lead of the late Duke of Devonshire, then Chancellor, comprises as
active members most of the public men who owe allegiance to
Cambridge, and has alrea