government and with the Royal Society which were crowned with complete success. He did not, however, live ‘to see the formal completion of the scheme whose birth he did so much to help, and which, to his last days, he aided in more ways than one’ (Sir Michael Foster's Presidential Address, British Association, 1899).
Galton's interest in education was wide and varied. He was a member of the first committee to advocate the higher education of women and was one of the original founders of the Girls' Public Day School Company. He was president of the senate of University College, London, and took a lively interest in its welfare. He represented the Royal Institution on the council of the London University Extension Society, was vice-president of the Society of Arts, a member of the council of the Royal Drawing Society, and a member of the council of the Princess Helena's College at Ealing. It was through his efforts that the Childhood Society was established. He strongly urged before a committee of the education department that special classes in elementary schools should be provided for the benefit of children of defective intellect, and he advocated the removal of such children, when subject to unhealthy or evil surroundings, to ‘homes’ in order to give them, by family life, an opportunity of development, believing that the proper care of such children would eventually reduce crime and add to the strength and wealth of the nation. From its start in 1869 he was a most active member of the committee of the Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War (now the Red Cross Society), and during the Franco-German war was sent by the society as commissioner to the sick and wounded of both nations. He visited the German hospitals especially, and in recognition of his services the imperial order of the Crown of Prussia was conferred upon him by the German emperor.
But Galton's name will always be chiefly associated with sanitary science. The Herbert hospital at Woolwich was designed by him when he was at the war office between 1860 and 1862, and many improvements in barracks and hospitals are due to his initiative. He invented a ventilating fire grate in the early sixties, which was adopted for all military barracks and hospitals, and went by his name. It introduced a new idea in connection with heating apparatus, and General Arthur Jules Morin, of the French artillery, the head of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, considered it the only original arrangement for perfect warming and ventilating with the open fireplace that the century had produced.
Galton gave a course of lectures to the royal engineers at Chatham, in November 1876, on sanitary engineering, which was published in the following year. He was among the first and most earnest supporters of the Parkes Museum, and was chairman of its council from 1882 to 1888. He was also a member of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain, and acted as chairman of its council from 1885 to 1887. Since the amalgamation of the two bodies he was twice chairman of council from 1888 to 1892 and from 1897 to 1899. He was elected vice-president in 1892, and became also treasurer in 1894, positions which he continued to hold until his death. For many years he was chairman of the board of examiners, and took great interest in the training of sanitary officers, to whom he often lectured, both in London and the provinces. His last lecture to them in London was given on 17 Oct. 1898, when he urged that their motto should be the proverb ‘Prevention is better than cure.’
At the queen's jubilee in 1887 Galton was made a knight commander of the order of the Bath, civil division, and in 1889 an officer of the French legion of honour, and a knight of grace of the order of St. John of Jerusalem. He also received the Turkish order of the Medjidie. In 1894 the Institution of Civil Engineers made him an honorary member. Oxford University conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L. on 9 June 1875, and Durham and Montreal Universities that of LL.D. Elected a fellow of the Royal Society as far back as 1859, he more than once served on its council. He was also a member of many other learned and scientific societies at home and abroad.
In 1891 he acted as chairman of the executive committee of the international congress of hygiene and demography held in London. During the last decade of his life he associated himself with some of the metropolitan electrical industries. He had been a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers since 1872, and a member of the council from 1888 to 1890. He was also vice-president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. In his own county, Worcestershire, he was a justice of the peace and county councillor.
He died of blood poisoning at his town house, 11 Chester Street, S.W., on 18 March 1899, and, although a prominent advocate of cremation, he was buried at Hadzor, Worcestershire, for family reasons. He married, on 26 Aug. 1851, at Farnham, Marianne, daughter of George Thomas Nicholson of
