gave important advice as to the improvement of the collections in the South Kensington and Bethnal Green Museums.
Miss Ormerod also lectured with success. From October 1881 to June 1884 she was special lecturer on economic entomology at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, delivering six valuable lectures on insects. Ten lectures delivered at South Kensington Museum were published as ’Guide to the Methods of Insect Life' (1884). In 1889 she lectured at the Farmers' Club, of which she was elected an honorary member.
Miss Ormerod's activities did not lessen in her last years, although the death of her sister in 1896 greatly depressed her. Many honours were awarded her by agricultural societies in all parts of the world. On 14 April 1900 she was made hon. LL.D. of Edinburgh, being the first woman to receive the honour, and being greeted by the vice-chancellor. Sir Ludovic Grant, 'as the protectress of agriculture and the fruits of the earth, a beneficent Demeter of the nineteenth century.' Although so energetic in public work. Miss Ormerod had little sympathy with the agitation for woman's suffrage. She died at Torrington House, St. Albans, of malignant disease of the liver, on 19 July 1901, and was buried at St. Albans.
In addition to the 'Annual Reports' and 'The Cobham Journals,' abstracts and summaries of meteorological observations, made by Miss Caroline Molesworth, 1825-1850 (Stanford, 1880), she published 'A Manual of Remedies and Means of Prevention for the Attacks of Insects on Food Crops, Forest Trees, and Fruit' (1881 ; 2nd edit. 1890) ; 'Injurious Fruit and Farm Insects of South Africa' (1889) ; 'A Text Book of Agricultural Entomology, being a Plain Introduction to the Classification of Insects and Methods of Insect Life' (1892) ; 'Hand Book of Insects Injurious to Orchard and Bush Fruits' (1898) ; and several important papers on ox bot or warble fly, all beiag comprised in ’Flies Injurious to Stock' (i.e. sheep, horse, and ox) (1900) her latest work.
A lifelike oil painting of Miss Ormerod in academic costume (1900) hangs in Edinburgh University court room. To the university she presented a set of insect diagrams, hand-painted by her sister Georgiana, and a collection of insect cases furnished by herself, besides bequeathing unconditionally a sum of 5000’'l. This money has been applied to general purposes. An offer to the university by her executor of her fine working library, on condition that her bequest should be devoted to scientific objects, was refused.
[Eleanor Ormerod, LL.D., Economic Entomologist, Autobiography and Correspondence, edited by the present writer, with portrait and illustrations, 1904 ; The Times, 20 July 1901 ; Canadian Entomologist, vol. 33, Sept. 1901 ; Royal Agric. Soc. Journal, vol. 62, 1901 ; Men and Women of the Time, 1899.]
ORR, Mrs. ALEXANDRA SUTHERLAND (1828–1903), biographer of Browning, born on 23 Dec. 1828 at St. Petersburg, where her grandfather, (Sir) James Boniface Leighton, was court physician, was second daughter of Frederic Septimus Leighton (1800–1892), a doctor of medicine, by his wife Augusta Susan, daughter of George Augustus Nash of Edmonton. Frederic Leighton, Lord Leighton [q. v. Suppl. I], was her only brother. She was named Alexandra after her godmother the Empress of Russia. The family travelled much in Europe, and Alexandra was educated mostly abroad. Her health was always delicate. On account of her defective sight, most of her very considerable knowledge was acquired by listening to books read aloud to her. She married on 7 March 1857 Sutherland George Gordon Orr, commandant of the 3rd regiment of cavalry, Hyderabad contingent, and accompanied him to India. They were there during the Mutiny, and Mrs. Orr had a narrow escape from Aurungabad, her ultimate safety being due to the fidelity of Sheikh Baran Bukh. Orr died on 19 June 1858, worn out by the sufferings and privations endured in the Mutiny. He was gazetted captain and brevet major and C.B. on the day of his death. Mrs. Orr then rejoined her father, who, after sojourns in Bath and Scarborough, finally settled in London in 1869.
Mrs. Orr's main interests lay in art and literature, and in social intercourse with artists and men of letters. Already in the winter of 1855-6 she had met, in Paris, the poet Robert Browning, with whom her brother was on intimate terms from early manhood. The poet's acquaintance with Mrs. Orr was renewed at intervals until 1869, when, both having fixed their residence in London, they became close friends. For many years he read books to her twice a week. Shortly after its formation in 1881, Mrs. Orr joined the Browning Society, became a member of the committee, wrote notes on various difficult points in Browning's poems, and was generous in money donations. The most important fruit of the connection was her illuminating
