He treated himself with the same severity; for years together he took no rest from work, and towards 1901 he developed weakness of the arterial system, from which he ultimately died on 8 Nov. 1908, at his house, 41 Norfolk Square, Hyde Park. He was buried at the Brompton cemetery without religious rites, but with a choral service of sacred music. His son-in-law, Mr. Israel Zangwill, and Professor Perry delivered addresses over the grave.
By his first marriage Ayrton had one daughter, Edith Chaplin Ayrton, who married the writer, Israel Zangwill, and is herself the author of several novels. On 6 May 1885 he married Miss Sarah (Hertha) Marks, a distinguished Girton student, who was in 1906 awarded the Hughes medal of the Royal Society for her researches on the electric arc and on sand ripples; by his second marriage he had one daughter, Barbara Bodichon, now married to Mr. Gerald Gould.
The list of Ayrton's papers, 151 in all, includes eleven published before 1876, independently; seventy published between 1876 and 1891 with Prof. Perry (of which two were in collaboration with other workers); and twelve in collaboration with Professor Mather. Ayrton published in 1887 a work on 'Practical Electricity,' which went through eleven editions in his lifetime and has since been reissued as a joint work with Professor Mather.
It is as a pioneer in electrical engineering and a great teacher and organiser of technical education that Ayrton will be remembered. He was a man of restless energy and of the most varied capacities, scientific, dramatic, and musical, and alive to problems of philosophy and religion to which he refrained from devoting his time only because he saw no possibility of immediate solutions. Like other members of his family he was an active and generous supporter of women's rights.
Ayrton was somewhat above the medium height, fair, with brown hair and blue eyes. A medallion in plaster by Miss Margaret Giles (Mrs. Bernard Jenkin) is in the possession of Mrs. Ayrton.
[A short account of the Families of Chaplin and Skinner and connected Families, privately printed, 1902, for Nugent Chaplin; Univ. Coll. School Register for 1831-1891; Univ. Coll. London, Calendars for 1865-6, pp. 55, 118; ib. for 1866-7, pp. 67, 116; ib. for 1867-8, pp. 109, 130; University of London Calendar; Government of India Telegraph Department, Classified Lists . . . and Distribution Returns for years ending 31 March 1869 (pp. 3, 50) and 1870-1873; article by P. J. Hartog in Cassier's Magazine, xxii. 541 (1902); obituary notice in The Central (Journal of the City and Guilds of London Central Technical College), vol. vii. (1910) (with portrait from photograph) by Maurice Solomon and Professor Thomas Mather, F.R.S., with a bibliography containing a 'fairly complete' list of papers, by F. E. Meade, as well as in Nature, 19 Nov. 1908, and in Proc. Roy. Soc. 85 A, p.i., by Professor John Perry; information from Mrs. Ayrton and personal knowledge.]
B
BACON, JOHN MACKENZIE (1846–1904), scientific lecturer and aeronaut, born at Lambourn Woodlands, Berkshire, on 19 June 1846, was fourth son of John Bacon, vicar of Lambourn Woodlands, a friend and neighbour of Charles Kingslcy and Tom Hughes, by his wife Mary Lousada, of Spanish ancestry. His great-grandfather was John Bacon, R.A. [q. v.], and his grandfather John Bacon (1777-1859), sculptor [q.v.]. After education at home and at a coaching establishment at Old Charlton, with a view to the army, he matriculated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1865, gaining a foundation scholarship in 1869. Eye trouble compelled an 'aegrotat' degree in the mathematical tripos of 1869. His intimate friends at Cambridge included William Kingdon Clifford [q. v.], Francis Maitland Balfour [q. v.], and Edward Henry Palmer, the orientalist [q. v.].
From 1869 to 1875 he worked with a brother at Cambridge as a pass 'coach.' Taking holy orders in 1870, he was unpaid curate of Harston, Cambridge, until 1875, when he settled at Cold ash, Berkshire. There he assisted in parochial work, was a poor law guardian, initiated cottage shows, and encouraged hand-bell ringing and agriculture. He acted as curate of Shaw, four miles from Coldash, from 1882 until 1889, when his 'The Curse of Conventionalism : a Remonstrance by a Priest of the Church of England,' boldly challenged the conventional clerical attitude to scientific questions, and brought on him. the censure of the orthodox. Thereupon he abandoned
