47 2 Presidentship of Lord Lister 1897 



Andrew Russell Forsyth is now Chief Professor of Mathe- 

 matics in the Imperial College of Science and Technology, 

 an appointment which he accepted after resigning the 

 Sadlerian Professorship of Pure Mathematics in the Univer- 

 sity of Cambridge. He was elected into the Royal Society 

 in 1886. 



Sir William White, trained in the Admiralty's School at 

 the Devonport Dockyard, was chosen one of eight ship- 

 wright apprentices as students at the time when the Navy 

 was about to be reconstructed by the replacement of 

 wooden by iron ships. He obtained the highest diploma, 

 and was thereafter appointed to the Admiralty Staff for 

 the design and construction of ships for the Navy. In 

 1875 he was promoted to the rank of Constructor and in 

 1881 Chief Constructor. After a short interval, during which 

 he was engaged as war-ship designer and manager of the 

 war-ship building branch of the firm of Armstrong, Whit- 

 worth & Co., at Elswick on the Tyne, he returned to the 

 Admiralty as Assistant-Controller of the Navy and Director 

 of Naval Construction. He introduced new ideas into the 

 building of war-ships and built many vessels of all grades. 

 The strain of the work, into which he threw all his energies, 

 began to affect his health and compelled him to retire from 

 the public service in 1901. But thereafter he found ample 

 scope for his energies in the many societies and institutions 

 to which he belonged. He was a valued member of several 

 of the Committees of the Royal Society, of which he became 

 a Fellow in 1888. His public services were recognised by 

 his being made a Knight Commander of the Bath. He died 

 suddenly on February 27, 1913. 



Frank McClean was an engineer by profession. After 

 studying at Glasgow under Sir William Thomson he entered 

 Trinity College, Cambridge. When later in life he had 

 leisure to devote to science he studied the spectra of the 

 stars and the spectrum of the high and low sun and the 

 absorption lines due to the earth's atmosphere. He was 

 likewise a collector of manuscripts, early printed books, 

 coins, enamels, and ivories. In his lifetime he was a liberal 



