In the British Medical Association Tait was a member of the council, president of the Birmingham branch and also of the Worcestershire and Herefordshire branch, and in 1890 he delivered the address on surgery when the association held its annual meeting in Birmingham. He was president of the Medical Defence Union and raised the society to a position of considerable importance. In 1876 he was president of the Birmingham Natural History Society,and in 1884 he was president of the Birmingham Philosophical Society. He was also professor of anatomy at the Royal Society of Artists and Birmingham School of Design. He was too a founder of the Midland Union of Natural History Societies, and was largely concerned in the establishment of coffee-houses in Birmingham.
The university of the State of New York conferred on him, honoris causa, the degree of M.D. in 1886, and in 1889 he received a similar tribute from the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons, while in 1888 the Union University of New York conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. At the time of his death he was an honorary fellow of the American Gynæcological Society and of the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynæcologists.
The last five years of Tait's life were marked by almost continuous ill-health, which caused him to relinquish much of his operative work for the repose of Llandudno, where he purchased a house. Here he died of uræmia on 13 June 1899. His body was cremated at Liverpool, the ashes being afterwards interred in Gogarth's cave, an ancient burial-place in the grounds of his Welsh home. He married, in 1871, Sybil Anne, a daughter of William Stewart, solicitor of Wakefield, Yorkshire, but he had no children.
Lawson Tait was a frequent contributor to the press, lay as well as medical. He had a sound antiquarian knowledge; he was an excellent companion, a good raconteur, and an admirable public speaker. He enjoyed being in a minority, and this led him to champion many lost causes. As a surgeon he simplified and perfected the technique and greatly enlarged the scope of abdominal surgery. The pioneers in this department of surgery had almost limited themselves to the diseases of the ovaries and uterus; but Tait's consummate operative skill, coupled with his power of generalisation, enabled him to extend the range of uterine surgery and to apply its principles, until now nearly every abdominal organ can be successfully explored and treated by the surgeon.
He published: 1. 'The Pathology and Treatment of Diseases of the Ovaries' (the Hastings prize essay, 1873), 1874; 4th edit. 1882. 2. 'An Essay on Hospital Mortality, based on the Statistics of the Hospitals of Great Britain for Fifteen Years,' London, 1877, 8vo. 3. 'Diseases of Women,' London, 1877, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1886. An American edition was published in New York in 1879 and at Philadelphia in 1889, and the work was translated into French by Dr. Olivier in 1886 and by Dr. Betrix in 1891. 4. 'The Uselessness of Vivisection upon Animals as a Method of Scientific Research,' Birmingham, 1882, 8vo; reissued in America in 1883, and translated into German, Dresden, 1883, 8vo. 5. 'Lectures on Ectopic Pregnancy and Pelvic Hæmatocele,' Birmingham, 1888, 8vo.
[Lancet and British Medical Journal, vol. i. 1899; The Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. xviii. 1892 and xxxii. 875, 1899; Contemporary Medical Men, edited by John Leyland, vol. ii. 1888; private information.]
TATE, Sir HENRY (1819–1899), first baronet, public benefactor, eldest son of William Tate of Chorley, Lancashire, by Agnes, daughter of Nathaniel Booth of Gildersoine, Yorkshire, was born at Chorley on 11 March 1819. Having started life as a grocer's assistant, he entered the firm of a large sugar-refiner in Liverpool, and soon rose to a position of responsibility. In 1872 an invention was brought to him which removed one of the great difficulties of the retail sugar trade. By an exceedingly simple process the invention cut up sugar-loaves into small pieces for domestic use. Tate at once recognised the usefulness of the invention, patented it, and laid the foundations of his fortune. In 1880 he migrated to London, very soon took a leading position in the Mincing Lane market, and developed his business until it assumed gigantic proportions and until 'Tate's cube sugar' became known all over the world. Tate's local benefactions kept pace with his fortune. He gave no less than 42,000l. to the newly founded University College of Liverpool (1881-2), and even larger sums to the various Liverpool hospitals, in addition to a large number of anonymous donations both to individuals and to charities. On becoming a resident at Streatham Common his bounty was extended to South London, where, among other donations, he gave (at a cost of 16,700l.) a handsome free library to Brixton, opened by King Edward VII, then prince of Wales, on 3 March 1893.
But Tate is remembered primarily for his munificent patronage of British art. He
