Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/996

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SCLATER-BOOTH.

979

same College. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1855, and went the Western circuit for several jears ; became secretary to the Zoological Society of London in 1859, was elected F.R.S. in 1861, and was made Doctor Philosophise by the University of Bonn (honoris causd) in 1860. He is editor of the Ibis, a journal of ornithology, and of the Natural History Review, and is author of a " Monograph of the Tanagrine Genus Calliste," "Zoolo- gical Sketches,*' "Catalogue of American Birds," "Guide to the CJardens of the Zoological Society of London," and of upwards of 600 pal)ers and memoirs on ornithology and other branches of natural history in the " Transactions " and "Proceedings" of the Zoological Society, the " Journal of the Lin- nsean Society," the "Annals of Natural History," the Ibis, the Natural History Review, and the Journal -of Science. In 1875 Mr. Sclater was appointed Private Secretary to his brother, the Eight Hon. G. Sclater-Booth, President of the Local Government Board, but resigned that office in 1877. In the same year he became one of the General Secretaries to the British Association for the Ad- vancement of Science, and con- tinued to act in that capacity until 1882, when he was elected one of the Vice-Presidents.

SCLATER-BOOTH, The Right Hon. Gbobgk, M.P., F.R.S., eldest son of William Lutley Sclater, Esq., of Hoddington Hotise, Hampshire, by Anne Maria, daughter of the late William Bowyer, Esq.^ was bom in London in 1826. From Winchester School, where he ob- tained the gold medal for Latin verse, he proceeded to Balliol Col- lege, Oxford (B.A. 1847). He was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1851. In 1857 he as- sumed, by royal licence, the name of Booth in addition to his patro- nymic; and in the same year he was elected M.P. for North Hamp-

I shire, which constituency he has continued to represent in the Con- servative interest down to the present time. During the first ten years of his Parliamentary career Mr. Sclater-Booth was a frequent and active member of Select Com- mittees, and became very conver- sant with the public and private business of the House of Commons. As Secretary to the Poor Law Board in 1867 he represented that depart- ment in the Lower House, his chief. Lord Devon, being the first peer who had ever filled the office of President. This brought the Se- cretaryship into greater promi- nence than it had previously occupied, and identified it more completely with the policy and administration of the depaitment. The severe pressure on the rates caused by the distress which pre- vailed at that time in the East of London, also brought Mr. Sclater- Booth's name before the public as actively promoting the co-operation between private charity and relief from the public rates, by which the emergency was finally dealt with. On the resignation of Lord Derby in Feb., 1868, the following year, Mr. Sclater-Booth was appointed to the Secretarydiip of the Treasury, in the room of Mr. Hunt, who became Chancellor of the Exche- quer. He passed the estimates through the House of Commons, and conducted the financial busi- ness of the Treasury till the general election of 1868, when Mr. Disra- eli's Government resigned. During Mr. Gladstone's administration (1868-74) Mr'. Sclater-Booth's at- tention continued to be constantly directed to public business, and he served during the greater part of that time as Chairman of the im- portant Committee on Public Ac- counts. On the formation of Mr. Disraeli's Government in 1874 he was sworn in as a Privy Councillor, and appointed to the office of Presi- dent of the Local Government Board, which he held till the Con- 3 b2