Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/126

 the first conservative penny weekly newspaper. This venture, which rendered great service to the conservative cause, he conducted in its original form until June 1886. Continued in a somewhat different shape until 28 May 1898, it was a constant drain on his resources, and helped to involve him in financial embarrassments which clouded the closing years of his life. On the accession of conservatives to power in June 1885 Ashmead Bartlett became civil lord of the admiralty, and he returned to the office in July 1886 on the formation of Lord Salisbury's second administration. He showed himself an industrious official, retired on the fall of the government in Aug. 1892, when he was knighted. On the outbreak of war between Turkey and Greece in 1897 Sir Ellis proceeded to Constantinople, where the Sultan conferred on him the grand cordon of the Medjidieh, and he joined the Turkish army in the field. He was present at the defeat of the Greeks at Mati and was among the first non-combatants to enter Tyrnavo and Larissa. He was afterwards taken prisoner by the commander of a Greek warship and carried to Athens, but was soon released. When the Boer war broke out in South Africa in Oct. 1899 Sir Ellis went to the front and witnessed some early stages of the campaign, in which two of his sons took part. He died in London, after an operation for appendicitis, on 18 Jan. 1902, and was buried at Tunbridge Wells.

He married in 1874 Frances Christina, daughter of Henry Edward Walsh, and had issue five sons and three daughters. His eldest son, Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, is well known as a war correspondent.

Ashmead Bartlett's published works included 'Shall England keep India?' (1886); 'Union or Separation' (1893); 'British, Natives and Boers in the Transvaal; the Appeal of the Swazi People ' (1894); 'The Transvaal Crisis; the Case for the Uitlander Residents' (1896); 'The Battlefields of Thessaly' (1897).

A portrait by Ernest Moore of Sheffield, painted in 1895, belongs to the family. A cartoon by 'Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1882.l

 BARTLEY, GEORGE CHRISTOPHER TROUT (1842–1910), founder of the National Penny Bank, born at Rectory Place, Hackney, on 22 Nov. 1842, was son by his second wife, Julia Anna Lucas, of Robert Bartley of Hackney, of the war office. After early education at Blackheath, at Clapton, and at University College school, he entered in 1860, as science examiner, the science and art department at South Kensington, of the education branch of which Sir Henry Cole [q. v.], father of his chief school friend, was the head. In 1866 he was made official examiner, and remained there until 1880 as assistant director of the science division, which was responsible for the establishment of science schools through the country. Since 1870 Bartley had written several pamphlets on social questions, especially on thrift and poor law and on education. His first published work, 'The Educational Condition and Requirements of One Square Mile in the East End of London' (1870; 2nd edit. 1870), was quoted by William Edward Forster during the discussion of the education bill of 1870. In 1871 followed 'Schools for the People,' which treated of the historical development and methods of schools for the working classes in England. From 1873 to 1882 he edited with Miss Emily Shirreff [q. v.] the journal of the Women's Educational Union, which aimed at the general improvement of women's education.

Poverty and its remedy also claimed his attention. In 1872 he read a paper before the Society of Arts on old age pensions, urging that help should be given in old age to those who had made some provision for themselves. Twenty-one years later he laid before the House of Commons a bill for old age pensions, which embodied his earlier principles (, Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age, 1892, p. 350). For the encouragement of thrift among the masses he published in 1872 twelve penny 'Provident Knowledge Papers,' which he supplemented in 1878 with his 'Domestic Economy: Thrift in Everyday Life.' In 1872 he started the instalment club at 77 Church Street, Edgware Road, which enabled workmen to buy tools or clothes by regular weekly payments. The foundation of the Middlesex Penny Bank at the same address followed the same year. In 1875, in conjunction with Sir Henry Cole (whose daughter he had married in 1864) and others, Bartley established the National Penny Bank; its main object was to encourage thrift among the working classes on a purely business basis. The scheme met with rapid success, and since its foundation over 2,900,000 accounts have been opened, and more