the board of control, and in 1840 he carried through the house a bill which received the royal assent, for establishing a board of superintendence for railways. He was under-secretary for the home department during two months in 1841. He voted for the repeal of the corn laws. Lord John Russell appointed him first commissioner of works in 1851, with a seat in the cabinet, but he was out of office for several years following the resignation of Lord John Russell in 1852. During the campaign in the Crimea he served on a committee of the house to inquire into the state of the army. When the borough of Totnes was disfranchised in 1855 he ceased to be a member of the House of Commons, but took his seat in the House of Lords, as Duke of Somerset, on his father's death on 15 Aug. in the same year.
When Palmerston formed an administration in 1859, the Duke of Somerset was appointed first lord of the admiralty, an office which he filled till 1866. Although not very popular, he was an efficient administrator. He was created K.G. on 21 May 1862, and Earl St. Maur of Berry Pomeroy on 17 June 1863. After his retirement in 1866 he took an active part, out of office, in supporting most of the liberal measures which came before the house, including the bill for the abolition of purchase in the army. He gave an intermittent support to the other measures of Mr. Gladstone's administration of 1868–74, which he declined to join. Subsequently his liberalism grew lukewarm.
In his younger days he sought recreation in yachting cruises in the Mediterranean. His later life was embittered by the loss of his two sons, after which he sought consolation in a study of the historical aspects of Christianity. In 1872 he published a small book on ‘Christian Theology and Modern Scepticism.’ Another by him, on ‘Monarchy and Democracy,’ appeared in 1880. He died at Stover Park, Torquay, on 28 Nov. 1885. His wife had predeceased him on 14 Dec. 1884.
His elder son, Edward Adolphus Ferdinand, Earl St. Maur, died on 30 Sept. 1869, and his younger son, Edward Percy, who was in the diplomatic service, on 20 Dec. 1865. Both were unmarried. The dukedom therefore devolved successively on the twelfth duke's two younger brothers, Archibald Henry Algernon, thirteenth duke (1810–1891), and Algernon Percy Banks, fourteenth duke (1813–1894).
[Ann. Register for 1885; Letters, Remains, and Memorials of E. A. Seymour, twelfth Duke of Somerset, K.G., ed. W. H. Mallock and Lady Guendolen Ramsden, 1893; Spencer Walpole's Life of Earl Russell, ii. 423.]
SEYMOUR, EDWARD JAMES (1796–1866), physician and medical writer, was the third son of William Seymour of 65 Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, London, by his wife, Thyphena Letithœa, eldest daughter of Daniel Foulston of London. His father, a member of a family settled in Lincolnshire in the middle of the seventeenth century, was an attorney-at-law, who resided at Brighton for thirty years, and was a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for the county of Sussex, and chairman of the quarter sessions. The son, born on 30 March 1796, was baptised at the church of St. Nicholas, Lower Tooting. He received his education at Richmond School, Surrey, and at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in January 1816, M.A. in 1819, and M.D. in 1826. He had a license ‘ad practicandum’ from his university in 1822. He also studied medicine in London, Edinburgh, and Paris; he was admitted an inceptor candidate of the College of Physicians on 22 Dec. 1823, a candidate on 30 Sept. 1826, and a fellow on 1 Oct. 1827. At the college he subsequently held the posts of Gulstonian lecturer in 1829, censor in 1830, Croonian lecturer in 1831, and consiliarius in 1836.
As the law at that time did not permit physicians to practise in London under the age of twenty-six, the first years of his professional life were passed in Italy, and chiefly at Florence, where he made a large income and formed a connection that was of advantage to him in after life. In 1823 he returned to England, and, establishing himself at 23 George Street, Hanover Square, soon acquired a good practice. On 28 Nov. 1828 he was elected physician to St. George's Hospital; he held the post till 1847, and rose to be senior physician. He was remarkable for his facility in communicating knowledge to the students at the bedside. Soon after settling in London he became physician to the Dreadnought hospital ship at Greenwich, and subsequently consulting physician to the Seamen's Hospital. He was also physician to H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex. From 1 Sept. 1831 to 1839 he was a metropolitan commissioner in lunacy; he latterly devoted much of his attention to insane cases, and was one of the first to use opium freely in the treatment of mental diseases. In 1859 he published a letter, which he addressed to the Earl of Shaftesbury, ‘On the Laws which regulate Private Lunatic Asylums, with a comparative View of the process “de lunatico inquirendo” in England and the law of France.’ To it are added a few observations on the causes of insanity and on the improvement in the treatment of
