Note D — INTRODUCTION.

Simon Wilkin (1790-1862), the able editor of Sir Thomas Browne's collected works, was born at Costessey near Norwich, in the year 1790. He came to Norwich after his father's death in 1799, taking up his temporary abode with his guardian, Joseph Kinghorn, a Baptist minister of note and a prominent member of a literary circle then existing in Norwich, by whom his education was superintended. On arriving at man's estate and being at that time possessed of ample means, he devoted himself to the study of Natural History, especially to Entomology, and was the possessor of a large collection of insects which, in the year 1827, was purchased for the Norwich Museum at a cost of one hundred guineas, a large sum in those days. He was one of the founders and the first librarian of the Norfolk and Norwich Literary Institution in 1822, also of the Norfolk and Norwich Museum in 1825, both of which institutions (the former reunited to its parent Library, founded in 1784) are still flourishing. Wilkin was a Fellow of the Linnean Society, also a Member of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh. In later years the loss of the bulk of his property by a commercial failure necessitated his turning his attention to some means of earning a livelihood, and he established himself in Norwich as a printer and publisher; later in life he removed to Hampstead, where he died on 28th July, 1862, and was buried in his native village of Costessey.