It is certain that no English draughtsman has ever attained greater vigour or vivacity in black and white. In this frugal and decisive medium he drew thousands of droll and cynical scenes of Bohemian and street life, becoming thereby as pre-eminently the people's illustrator of the end of the Victorian period as Keene had been during its middle years and Leech during its earlier ones. None could set down London street types, whether of Seven Dials or the Strand, with greater fidelity and brilliance. Critics and artists alike united to praise him. Whistler once remarked that modern black and white could be summed up in two words—Phil May.
In private life May was a man of much humour and a curious amiability and gentleness, qualities which unhappily carried with them a defect of weakness that made him the victim both of sociability and of impecunious friends. He earned large sums but was too easily relieved of them. His 'Punch' editor, Sir Francis Burnand, tells a story illustrative at once both of his generosity and of his inherent sweetness, to the effect that on being asked at a club for a loan of 60l, May produced all he had—namely half that amount—and then abstained from the club for some time for fear of meeting the borrower, because he felt that 'he still owed him 25l.'
Before his health finally broke May had been a sedulous horseman. He was greatly interested in boxing, although rather as a spectator than a participator, and another of Ms hobbies was the composition of lyrics, usually of a sentimental order, some of which were set to music. Not long before his death he made a serious arrangement to return to the stage, as Pistol, in a revival of 'Henry V'; but his appearance did not extend beyond one or two rehearsals taken with impossible levity. A full-length portrait of May in hunting costume by J. J. Shannon was exhibited at the Academy of 1901, so realistic in character as to distress many who saw it and were unaware of May's besetting weakness. A cartoon portrait by 'Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1895. He also introduced himself in his pictures probably more frequently than any other artist, often with a whimsical and half-pathetic sidelong glance at his foibles. He died on 6 Aug. 1903 at his home in Medina Place, St. John's Wood, and was buried at Kensal Green. His widow, who received a civil list pension of 100l. a year, married again and died in 1910. He left no family.
After his death there were published further collections of published and unpublished sketches in 'Phil May's Sketches from Punch,' 1903, his 'Picture Book,' 1903, with a biographical and critical preface by G. R. Halkett; his 'Medley,' 1904, his 'Folio of Caricature Drawings and Sketches,' 1904, with a biography, and in the same year 'Phil May in Australia,' with both an excellent biography and iconography. On 25 June 1910 a mural tablet subscribed for by the public was unveiled on the house in Leeds where he was born, recording the circumstance and calling him 'the great black and white artist' and 'a fellow of infinite jest.'
[The Times, 6 August 1903; biographical prefaces to Phil May in Australia, Bulletin Office, Sydney, 1904, and The Phil May Folio, London, 1904; James Glover, Jimmy Glover: his book, 1911 (with portrait of May by himself, Leeds, 1880); private information.]
MAYOR, JOHN EYTON BICKERSTETH (1825–1910), classical scholar and divine, third son of the Rev. Robert Mayor (d. 1846), was born on 28 Jan. 1825 at Baddegama in Ceylon, where his father was a missionary of the Church Missionary Society from 1818 to 1828. His mother was Charlotte (1792-1870), daughter of Henry Bickersteth, surgeon, of Kirkby Lonsdale, and sister of Henry Bickersteth, Baron Langdale [q. v.], and Edward Bickersteth, rector of Watton [q. v.]. He was named John Eyton in memory of his father's friend, the Rev. John Eyton {d. 1823), rector of Eyton in Shropshire, who had prompted the elder Mayor to abandon the medical profession and to become a missionary (The Eagle, xxv. 333).
From his early boyhood Mayor delighted in books. At the age of six he 'revelled in Rollin (in default of Plutarch) 'and in English prose versions of Homer and Virgil (First Greek Reader, p. xxi, n. 2). After attending the grammar school of Newcastle-under-Lyme as a day boy, he was from 1833 to 1836 at Christ's Hospital, whence he was removed owing to an attack of scarlet fever. For several years he was at home, learning Greek, as well as Latin, from his mother. In 1838, with the aid of his uncle, Robert Bickersteth, a successful surgeon in Liverpool, he was sent to Shrewsbury, the school which won his lifelong devotion. He read much out of school, for his own improvement. He bought for himself and 'perused carefully' the works of Joseph Butler and Richard Hooker (The Latin Heptateuch, p. lxvii f.), and was
