ing on several occasions as secretary, in 1896 he was promoted permanently to that post, which he held till his retirement in 1911. He received the C.S.I. in 1897 and was knighted in 1911. After his retirement he was employed by the secretary of state for India upon a measure to amend and consolidate the conflicting and piecemeal legislation of parliament with regard to India; and on this he was engaged at the time of his death, which occurred suddenly at Streatham, 5 January 1914. The measure was finally cast into shape by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, and became the Government of India Act (1915).
Macpherson's career was of a type more common at Whitehall than in India, the whole of his active life being spent in a single office. A legal draftsman's position is necessarily one of continuous self-effacement; and it is therefore difficult to estimate his exact share in the Indian legislation of his time. Its most notable monuments, such as the Transfer of Property Act (1882) and the Civil Procedure Codes (1882 and 1908), were considered in detail by specially appointed committees composed of the highest legal talent available; and such work as Macpherson may have done on them can hardly have been more than routine. Indeed, he lacked the experience of litigation necessary for more than routine work. On the other hand, as he was never the responsible head of the legislative department, he cannot fairly be charged with its conspicuous failures, which were due to a policy of excessive simplification.
Macpherson's reputation was that of a thorough and painstaking official with an intimate knowledge of all the details of his office. To this knowledge and experience the rules of procedure for the enlarged Morley-Minto councils (1910) owe much of their success. He was also a valued critic and adviser on the technique of provincial legislation, when it came before the government of India in the ordinary course for approval before enactment. It is, however, with the legislative activities of the foreign department that his name will be longest associated; for the official Lists of British Enactments in Force in Native States in India (6 vols., 1888–1895) was originally compiled under his guidance, and, though subsequently re-edited, is still familiarly known as ‘Macpherson’.
In private life Macpherson was a man of deep piety and a staunch adherent of the Presbyterian Church. He was happy in his home life and in a gift for making and retaining a very wide circle of friends. He married in 1880 Edith Christina (died 1913), daughter of General Charles Waterloo Hutchinson, C.B., Royal Engineers, inspector-general of military works in India. They had three sons and one daughter.
[The Times, 6 January 1914; private information.]
MAHAFFY, Sir JOHN PENTLAND (1839–1919), provost of Trinity College, Dublin, author of numerous works on Greek literature and history, was born at Chapponnaire, near Vevey, Switzerland, 26 February 1839, the seventh and youngest child of the Rev. Nathaniel B. Mahaffy, a small landowner in county Donegal, by his wife, Elizabeth Pentland, who also came of a landowning family in county Monaghan. He was thus of Irish descent on both sides. His father acted as British chaplain at Lucerne from 1840 to 1843, in which year he exchanged the chaplaincy at Lucerne for a similar post at Bad Kissingen in Bavaria, and it was there that the boy was brought up till the age of nine. His parents then returned to Ireland and settled down on their property in Donegal. Young Mahaffy was educated at home until he entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1855. His career at the university was brilliant; he won a scholarship in classics, and graduated in 1859 as first senior moderator in classics and logics. He was elected to a fellowship in 1864, having taken holy orders earlier in the same year. In the life of the undergraduates he played a leading part; he was captain of the cricket eleven and shot in the Irish team at Wimbledon, besides taking an active interest in the music of the college. In 1865 he married Frances, daughter of William MacDougall, of Howth, co. Dublin. The issue of this marriage was a family of four children, two sons and two daughters. From his election to a fellowship down to his death he continued to serve the college in one capacity or another as tutor, professor, vice-provost, and provost, for a period of fifty-five years.
Mahaffy's interests were originally philosophical, and the first work which he published was a Translation of Kuno Fischer's Commentary on Kant (1866), but his election in 1869 as the first professor of ancient history in the university gave a new direction to his studies. For the next forty years Greek history and Greek literature were to form the main subject of his labours. In 1871 he published his Prolegomena to Ancient History, which
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