Cable companies united to celebrate the event, and from the university library a message was sent through Newfoundland, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Florida and Washington, and was received by Lord Kelvin seven and a half minutes after it had been despatched, having travelled about 20,000 miles and twice crossed the Atlantic during the interval. It was at the banquet in connexion with the jubilee celebration that the Lord Provost of Glasgow thus summarized Lord Kelvin’s character: “His industry is unwearied; and he seems to take rest by turning from one difficulty to another—difficulties that would appal most men and be taken as enjoyment by no one else. . . . This life of unwearied industry, of universal honour, has left Lord Kelvin with a lovable nature that charms all with whom he comes in contact.”
Three years after this celebration Lord Kelvin resigned his chair at Glasgow, though by formally matriculating as a student he maintained his connexion with the university, of which in 1904 he was elected chancellor. But his retirement did not mean cessation of active work or any slackening of interest in the scientific thought of the day. Much of his time was given to writing and revising the lectures on the wave theory of light which he had delivered at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 1884, but which were not finally published till 1904. He continued to take part in the proceedings of various learned societies; and only a few months before his death, at the Leicester meeting of the British Association, he attested the keenness with which he followed the current developments of scientific speculation by delivering a long and searching address on the electronic theory of matter. He died on the 17th of December 1907 at his residence, Netherhall, near Largs, Scotland; there was no heir to his title, which became extinct.
In addition to the Baltimore lectures, he published with Professor P. G. Tait a standard but unfinished Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867). A number of his scientific papers were collected in his Reprint of Papers on Electricity and Magnetism (1872), and in his Mathematical and Physical Papers (1882, 1883 and 1890), and three volumes of his Popular Lectures and Addresses appeared in 1889–1894. He was also the author of the articles on “Heat” and “Elasticity” in the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
See Andrew Gray, Lord Kelvin (1908); S. P. Thompson, Life of Lord Kelvin (1910), which contains a full bibliography of his writings. (W. G.; H. M. R.)
KEMBLE, the name of a family of English actors, of whom
the most famous were Mrs Siddons (q.v.) and her brother John
Philip Kemble, the eldest of the twelve children of Roger Kemble
(1721–1802), a strolling player and manager, who in
1753 married an actress, Sarah Wood.
John Philip Kemble (1757–1823), the second child, was born at Prescot, Lancashire, on the 1st of February 1757. His mother was a Roman Catholic, and he was educated at Sedgeley Park Catholic seminary, near Wolverhampton, and the English college at Douai, with the view of becoming a priest. But at the conclusion of the four years’ course he discovered that he had no vocation for the priesthood, and returning to England he joined the theatrical company of Crump & Chamberlain, his first appearance being as Theodosius in Lee’s tragedy of that name at Wolverhampton on the 8th of January 1776. In 1778 he joined the York company of Tate Wilkinson, appearing at Wakefield as Captain Plume in Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer; in Hull for the first time as Macbeth on the 30th of October, and in York as Orestes in Ambrose Philips’s Distressed Mother. In 1781 he obtained a “star” engagement at Dublin, making his first appearance there on the 2nd of November as Hamlet. He also achieved great success as Raymond in The Count of Narbonne, a play taken from Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto. Gradually he won for himself a high reputation as a careful and finished actor, and this, combined with the greater fame of his sister, led to an engagement at Drury Lane, where he made his first appearance on the 30th of September 1783 as Hamlet. In this rôle he awakened interest and discussion among the critics rather than the enthusiastic approval of the public. But as Macbeth on the 31st of March 1785 he shared in the enthusiasm aroused by Mrs Siddons, and established a reputation among living actors second only to hers. Brother and sister had first appeared together at Drury Lane on the 22nd of November 1783, as Beverley and Mrs Beverley in Moore’s The Gamester, and as King John and Constance in Shakespeare’s tragedy. In the following year they played Montgomerie and Matilda in Cumberland’s The Carmelite, and in 1785 Adorni and Camiola in Kemble’s adaptation of Massinger’s A Maid of Honour, and Othello and Desdemona. Between 1785 and 1787 Kemble appeared in a variety of rôles, his Mentevole in Jephson’s Julia producing an overwhelming impression. On the 8th of December 1787 he married Priscilla Hopkins Brereton (1756–1845), the widow of an actor and herself an actress. Kemble’s appointment as manager of Drury Lane in 1788 gave him full opportunity to dress the characters less according to tradition than in harmony with his own conception of what was suitable. He was also able to experiment with whatever parts might strike his fancy, and of this privilege he took advantage with greater courage than discretion. His activity was prodigious, the list of his parts including a large number of Shakespearian characters and also a great many in plays now forgotten. In his own version of Coriolanus, which was revived during his first season, the character of the “noble Roman” was so exactly suited to his powers that he not only played it with a perfection that has never been approached, but, it is said, unconsciously allowed its influence to colour his private manner and modes of speech. His tall and imposing person, noble countenance, and solemn and grave demeanour were uniquely adapted for the Roman characters in Shakespeare’s plays; and, when in addition he had to depict the gradual growth and development of one absorbing passion, his representation gathered a momentum and majestic force that were irresistible. His defect was in flexibility, variety, rapidity; the characteristic of his style was method, regularity, precision, elaboration even of the minutest details, founded on a thorough psychological study of the special personality he had to represent. His elocutionary art, his fine sense of rhythm and emphasis, enabled him to excel in declamation, but physically he was incapable of giving expression to impetuous vehemence and searching pathos. In Coriolanus and Cato he was beyond praise, and possibly he may have been superior to both Garrick and Kean in Macbeth, although it must be remembered that in it part of his inspiration must have been caught from Mrs Siddons. In all the other great Shakespearian characters he was, according to the best critics, inferior to them, least so in Lear, Hamlet and Wolsey, and most so in Shylock and Richard III. On account of the eccentricities of Sheridan, the proprietor of Drury Lane, Kemble withdrew from the management, and, although he resumed his duties at the beginning of the season 1800–1801, he at the close of 1802 finally resigned connexion with it. In 1803 he became manager of Covent Garden, in which he had acquired a sixth share for £23,000. The theatre was burned down on the 20th of September 1808, and the raising of the prices after the opening of the new theatre, in 1809, led to riots, which practically suspended the performances for three months. Kemble had been nearly ruined by the fire, and was only saved by a generous loan, afterwards converted into a gift, of £10,000 from the duke of Northumberland. Kemble took his final leave of the stage in the part of Coriolanus on the 23rd of June 1817. His retirement was probably hastened by the rising popularity of Edmund Kean. The remaining years of his life were spent chiefly abroad, and he died at Lausanne on the 26th of February 1823.
See Boaden, Life of John Philip Kemble (1825); Fitzgerald, The Kembles (1871).
Stephen Kemble (1758–1822), the second son of Roger, was rather an indifferent actor, ever eclipsed by his wife and fellow player, Elizabeth Satchell Kemble (c. 1763–1841), and a man of such portly proportions that he played Falstaff without padding. He managed theatres in Edinburgh and elsewhere.
Charles Kemble (1775–1854), a younger brother of John Philip and Stephen, was born at Brecon, South Wales, on the 25th of November 1775. He, too, was educated at Douai.
