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American war. In 1863 he was sent to Lancashire by Lord Palmerston's GoTemment^ as Engineer Commis- sioner to organize, under Mr. Vil- liers, M.P., President of the Poor Law Board, "Work for Wages" amongst the distressed cotton ope- ratives. Sanitary works were car- ried out simultaneously in ninety- three towns and places within the distressed cotton district. Govern- ment advancing by instalments in the whole upwards of ^ei ,750,000 at 34 per cent., the entii'e of this sum having been expended, imder the supervision of Mr. Rawlinson, at a cost to the Government of less than three shillings and sixpence per cent. Mr. Eawlinson having prac- tically proved that Government could profitably lend money at 3J per cent, for towns improvements and sanitary works generally, strongly advocated the extension of the practice to all cases, and conse- quently an Act is now in force under ttie powers of which the Exchequer Loan Commissioners can advance money to any Urban or Eural Sani- tary Authority for terms extending to 60 years — 30 years at 34 per cent., ■10 years at 3| per cent., and 50 yeai's and upwards, at 4. per cent. Mr. Rawlinson has served .on several other royal commissions and special Government inquiries, and is a mem- ber of the Army Sanitary Commit- tee, which considers all questions connected with barracks, hospitals, and stations for the army, both at home, in India, and wherever Brit- ish soldiers are stationed through- out the world. He was decorated with the civil companionship of the Bath (1865), and is at present Chief Engineering Inspector under the Local Government Board, and Com- missioner to grant Certificates under the Rivers Pollution Pi*evention Act. He received the honour of knighthood Aug. 23, 1883.
READ, General John Mere- dith, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer of Greece, F.S.A, M.R.I.A., F.R.G.S., states-
man and diplomatist, is the repre- sentative of a family holding high position in the United States, and intimately associated with Ameri- can history. It sprang from a younger son of the very ancient Berkshire, Hertfordshire, and Ox- fordshire house, seated, says Sir Walter Scott, a thousand years ago in Northumbria, to which belonged the Reads (now extinct), baronets of Brockett Hall, and from which descend the baronets of Shipton and the Reades of Ipsden House. The first American ancestor, whose father, a staunch cavalier, took an active part for King Charles I. in the Civil Wars, purchased a mano- rial grant in the province of Mary- land from Lord Baltimore. It is a remarkable fact that this family contributed three signers of the Declaration of Independence, and four framei*s and signers of the Constitution of the United States. General Read's great-grandfather, the Hon. George Read, of Delaware, one of the fathers and founders of the American Republic, originally held Office under the Crown as Attorney-General, and afterwards was one of the six sigAers of the Declai-ation of Independence, who were also framers and signers of the Constitution of the United States. His grandfather, the Hon John Read, was a senator of Penn- sylvania, the American diplomatic agent under the Treaty of Amity with Great Britain in 1794, and the author of "British Debts.*' His father, the Hon. John Meredith Read, LL.D., Chief Justice of Penn- sylvania, was one of the most dis- tinguished jurists that America has produced, and at one time was pro- minently named as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. General Meredith Read is the only son of Chief Ju8tic3 Read. He was born at Philadelphia, Feb. 21, 1837, and received his education in a military school. He commanded a corps of National Cadets, which furnished 127 officers during the
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