Page 55 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 55

Cross on its institution in 1856; he after wards served all over the world, and did
some lively work with his Naval Brigade at Suakin and El Teb in 1884.
On the civil side may be mentioned Lord Effingham (1779), Deputy Earl
Marshal, and Governor of Jamaica, 1789-91; and Waller Rodwell Wright (1806),
one of our poets, who was Consul-General of the Ionian Islands, 1800-4, and
later President of the Court of Appeal at Malta.
The names of the two Henry Woodthorpes (1805-6), father and son, may be
added, who held between them the office of Town Clerk of the City of London
from 1801 to 1842.
Our most eminent lawyer was perhaps Sir James Cockle, F.R.S. (1883), the first
Chief Justice of Queensland, 1863-79. Sir James was also a profound mathematician,
and wrote learnedly on the theory of equations, both algebraic and differential;
those who engage in these mysteries will duly venerate his memory.
We do not seem to have had an English judge, but Wm. English Harrison,
K.C. (1878), who died in 1933 after a membership, active and honorary, of fifty-
five years, was a Bencher of the Middle Temple, six years Chairman of the Bar
Council, and many times a Com missioner of Assize.
In medicine must be named Forbes Winslow (1851), the leading alienist
of the mid-nineteenth century, who did so much by his writings and by his
own practice to forward the rational and humane treatment of the insane. The
Chevalier Ruspini’s services to dentistry have already been referred to.
Among professional members the engineers hold a leading place. William
Playfair (1797), who began an exciting and chequered life as an engineer, was
in the thick of the French Revolution, and had a hand in the storming of the
Bastille in 1789; Lewis Pocock (1844), really an amateur, patented a system of
electric lighting in 1852; and about the same time John Edward McConnell
(1860) was in command of the London and North Western Railway Company’s
locomotive works at Wolverton; he was a pioneer and innovator in locomotive
design, and like other men ahead of his time suffered some ridicule; a class of
engines he built with the wheels outside the frame, against the prevailing practice,
were nicknamed Bloomers, after another and notorious pioneer, because they
showed their legs.