Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/181

 successively to Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. From 1891 to 1896 he was keeper of the regalia at the Tower of London. On 25 May 1895 he was made G.C.B., and in the following year was appointed gentleman usher of the black rod. That office he held until his death. An all-round and enthusiastic sportsman, he was also an accomplished painter of landscape in water-colour.

Biddulph died at his residence, 2 Whitehall Court, on 23 July 1904, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery. He married in 1857 Katherine Stepan, daughter and co-heiress of Captain Stepan Stamati of Karani, Balaklava, commandant of Balaklava, by Helen, daughter and heiress of Paul Mavromichalis of Greece. Lady Biddulph died on 27 Sept. 1908, and was buried beside her husband at Kensal Green. Biddulph's five sons, all of the military service, survived him, together with two of his five daughters.

An oil portrait by Sylvester was painted in 1887, and another by A. Fletcher, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1904, attracted the attention of King Edward VII, who caused a copy to be made for Buckingham Palace. Both originals are in possession of Sir Michael's daughter, Miss Biddulph, at 15 Hanover Square, London.

 BIDWELL, SHELFORD (1848–1909), pioneer of telephotography, born at Thetford, Norfolk, on 6 March 1848, was eldest son of Shelford Clarke Bidwell, brewer, of Thetford, who married his first cousin, Georgina, daughter of George Bidwell, rector of Stanton, Norfolk. Educated privately at a preparatory school in Norfolk, and then at a private school at Winchester, Bidwell entered Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated B. A. (as a junior optime in the mathematical tripos) in 1870, LL.B. (with a second class in the law and history tripos) and M.A. in 1873. Called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 27 Jan. 1873, he joined the south-eastern circuit, and practised for some years, but finally devoted himself to scientific study, specialising with success in electricity and magnetism and physiological optics. To friendships formed among members of the Physical Society of London, which he joined in 1877, he traced the beginning of his scientific interests (see his Presidential Address, 1898). Obscure and apparently paradoxical phenomena fascinated him, and he showed exceptional subtlety and ingenuity in endeavours to account for them. About 1880 he began investigations into the photo-electric properties of the substance selenium, which led to an important practical application. On 11 March 1881 he lectured at the Royal Institution on 'Selenium and its Applications to the Photophone and Tele-photography,' and described an instrument which he had devised for electrically transmitting pictures of natural objects to a distance along a wire. 'It is so far successful' (he said) 'that although the pictures hitherto transmitted are of a very rudimentary character, I think there can be no doubt that further elaboration of the instrument would render it far more effective. Should there ever be a demand for tele-photography, it may in time turn out to be useful' (see also Nature, 10 Feb. 1881). A paper 'On Telegraphic Photography,' read at the York meeting of the British Association in 1881, further described the invention. The character of other of Bidwell's scientific inquiries is indicated by the titles of the following papers : 'The Influence of Friction upon the Generation of a Voltaic Current' (Proc. Phys. Soc. iv.); 'On the Electrical Resistance of Carbon Contacts' (Proc. Roy. Soc. xxxv.); 'The Electrical Resistance of Selenium Cells' (Proc. Phys. Soc. v.); 'On a Method of Measuring Electrical Resistances with a Constant Current' (Proc. Phys. Soc. v.); 'On the Sensitiveness of Selenium to Light, and the Development of a Similar Property in Sulphur' (Proc. Phys. Soc. vi.); 'On an Effect of Light upon Magnetism ' (Proc. Roy. Soc. xlv.); 'On the Changes produced by Magnetisation in the Dimensions of Rings and Rods of Iron and of some other Metals' (Phil. Trans, clxxix. A.); and 'On the Formation of Multiple Images in the Normal Eye' (Proc. Roy. Soc. lxiv.).

Bidwell's interests extended to meteorology, and in 1893 he lectured at the Royal Institution on 'Fogs, Clouds, and Lightning,' and before the Royal Meteorological Society, of which he was a fellow, on 'Some Meteorological Problems.'

Another of his Royal Institution discourses, 'Some Curiosities of Vision' (1897), appeared in an enlarged shape as 'Curiosities of Light and Vision' (1899). Bidwell, who was a skilful lecturer, was also a clear and sound writer. Many papers on physics appeared in 'Nature' and the chief 