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threatened disturbance of trade. This led to both masters and work- men requesting Mr. Eupert Kettle to settle the differenoes between thern^ and to his ultimately estab- lishing a legally organized system of arbitration. The essential prin- ciple of the new system was that if the delegates of the contending parties could not agree, an inde- pendent umpire should have power to make a final and legally binding award between them. The board of arbitration worked so satisfac- torily in Wolverhampton that Mr. Kettle was prevailed upon to intro- duce the same system in other towns, and it rapidly extended so as to include a lar^e portion of the building trade of Vie kingdom. The attempt to act without an independent umpire not having succeeded in the North of England iron trade, Mr. Kettle was invited to act as umpire. By his interven- tion a properly constituted system of arbitration was brought into operation, which extended to the iron trade in other districts, and ultimately the whole of this vast trade was brought to settle disputes by peaceful means. Boards of arbitration were afterwards estab- lished by Mr. Kettle in the coal trade, the potteries, the Nottingham lace trade, the hand-made paper trade, ironstone mining, and in other staple trades of the country. After ten years of this labour "Mr. Kettle was so overwhelmed with engagements as trade umpire that he found it impossible to meet all the claims upon his time and still continue to discharge efficiently the duties aa Judge of County Courts, to which he had been ap- pointed in 1859. Mr. Kettle ex- plained his reasons for, and his great reluctance at, resigning the duties of umpire, and expressed his continued confidence in the success of the system. During ten years he had, in addition to his other ser- vices to the cause of trade arbitra- tion, explained and advocated his
system in pamphlets and lectures, and conducted a large correspond- ence both for propagating his views to inquirers and for practically carrying them out in the different boards over which he presided. Soon after Mr. Gladstone s return to office in 1880 the honour of knighthood was conferred upon Mr. Kettle for "his public services in establishing a system of arbitration between employers and employed." On Nov. 17, 1882, he was elected a bencher of the Middle Temple. Sir Bupert Kettle is one of the senior Magistrates, and a Deputy- Lieutenant of Staffordshire, of which county he has been Assist- ant-Chairman of Quarter Sessions since 1866. He is also a Magistrate of the county of Merioneth, and by virtue of his office of Judge of County Courts is also on the Com- mission of the Peace for Worcester- shire and Herefordshire. He takes great interest in local educational institutions. As a member of the first school board he assisted to carry out the Elementary Educa- tion Act in Wolverhampton J and has been Chairman of the Governors of the Grammar School for nearly twenty years. During his presi- dency new school buildings have been erected, new endowments given, and a new scheme for educa- tion and management inaugurated. Sir Bupert Kettle married, in 1851, . Miss Maiy Cooke, of Merridale, Staffordshire, and has a numerous family.
KEY, ADMiBiLL Sm Astlbt CooPEB, G.C.B., F.R.S., is the second son of the late Charles Aston Key, Esq., by Anne, daugh- ter of the Eev. Samuel Lorick Cooper, of Great Yarmouth. He was born in 1821, and educated at the Naval College, Portsmouth, where he obtained the first medal and a lieutenant's commission in the navy, which he entered in 1835. He was junior lieutenant of the Oorgon in 1844, and was officiaJly mentioned for rescuing her on being
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