science; he was apparently equally at home in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Although professing but little patience with the refinements of modern pure mathematics, he could always muster the technique necessary for the treatment of a practical problem, and his solutions, invariably direct, artistic, and workmanlike, never fail to inspire admiration for his mastery of mathematical methods. Although not directly concerned with the great strides made by molecular physics in the latter years of his life, his judgement in these matters, in strong contrast with that of some of his contemporaries, was always fair, open-minded, and acute. His record of scientific work, great though it is, would have been greater had it not been that he felt it a duty to shoulder any administrative responsibility under which he believed that he could achieve valuable work. His personal preference would have undoubtedly been for pursuing his scientific investigations in the quiet of his country seat and the detachment of his private laboratory.
Rayleigh died at Witham, Essex, on 30 June 1919, having been at work on a scientific paper only five days previously. Although his physical health had for some time been feeble his mind had retained its power to the end. By his marriage he had three sons, of whom the eldest, Robert John Strutt (born 1875), already well known as a physicist, succeeded to the barony.
A portrait of Lord Rayleigh in his robes as chancellor of the university, painted by Sir Hubert von Herkomer in 1911, hangs in the Examination Hall at Cambridge; another portrait, by Sir George Reid, is in the rooms of the Royal Society (Royal Academy Pictures, 1911).
[Robert John Strutt, fourth Baron Rayleigh, John William Strutt, third Baron Rayleigh, 1924; Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. xcviii, A, 1921 (with portrait); Sir R. T. Glazebrook, The Rayleigh Period, in The History of the Cavendish Laboratory, 1910; personal knowledge.]
SUTTON, MARTIN JOHN (1850–1913), scientific agriculturist, born at Reading in 1850, was the eldest son of Martin Hope Sutton, senior partner in the seed firm of Sutton and Sons, which was founded by John Sutton in 1806. Martin John Sutton was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School until he reached the age of sixteen. He then entered the family business as a junior and, having become familiar with the work of every department, he was taken into partnership in 1871. In 1887 he became senior partner on his father's retirement. Before his time the firm already had a high reputation for its care in selecting and testing seeds, and for experimental work (inaugurated by his father) on the improvement of the potato and of agricultural grasses. He continued and extended these investigations in a thoroughly scientific spirit. He made searching field-trials both on the nursery grounds of the firm and on his private farms. He succeeded, by the help of the researches of the French botanist Vilmorin, in improving the methods of seed-selection, and he collaborated with Dr. J. A. Voelcker in experiments on grass-lands. Some of his results were stated in his standard book on Permanent and Temporary Pastures (sixth edition; 1902), to which a gold medal was awarded at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Under his guidance the firm of Sutton became celebrated for numerous and important new strains of farm and garden plants. His own interests centred in practical agriculture. He was a successful amateur breeder of cattle, sheep, and horses. He published important papers on wheat-growing and on agricultural education. He served for twenty-three years on the council of the Royal Agricultural Society and was a leading member of the Smithfield Club and of the London Farmers' Club. He was also a fellow of the Linnean Society, and a chevalier of the legion of honour and of the ordre du mérite agricole.
In politics Sutton was a conservative, with some characteristic reservations. He refused to stand for Reading in 1898 because he disapproved of his party's attitude towards the questions of liquor control and of religious teaching in elementary schools. He took his share in the work of county and municipal administration, and served as mayor of Reading in 1904. He was a staunch churchman of the evangelical type, sat for the diocese of Oxford in the Canterbury House of Laymen, and took part in founding the Imperial Sunday Alliance (1908). He was a generous supporter of religious, philanthropic, and educational institutions, especially in Reading and its neighbourhood.
Sutton was twice married: first, in 1875 to Emily Owen (died 1911), daughter of Colonel Henry Fouquet; secondly, in 1912 to Grace, eldest daughter of Charles Thomas Studd, the African missionary. By his first wife he had two
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