Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/25

 one of which, 'Fallen among Thieves' (1876), he and [q. v.] dramatised as 'From Father to Son.' He was also author of 'Our Holiday in the Scottish Highlands' in conjunction with Linley Sambourne in 1876, and in his last years of several very loosely knit volumes of recollections, among them 'London at the End of the Century' (1900), 'The À Becketts of Punch' (1903), and 'Recollections, of a Humourist' (1907). President of the Newspaper Society in 1895, of the Institute of Journalists in 1900, and British delegate of the press congress at Liège in 1905, he was universally liked in his profession. Irrepressible egotism in À Beckett lent an additional charm to a character simple, kindly, and genial to its foundation. His naiveté was well shown in his relations with Cardinal Manning, to whose church he became, like his friend Burnand, a convert in 1874. An accident necessitated the removal of A Beckett's leg at St. Thomas's Home on 11 Jan. 1909, and he died of collapse on 14 Jan. 1909. After a requiem mass at Westminster he was buried in Mortlake cemetery. He married in 1876 Susanna Francesca, daughter of Dr. Forbes Winslow, by whom he left two sons. His completion of his father's 'Comic History of England' is still unpublished.



ABEL, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS, first baronet (1827–1902), chemist, born on 17 July 1827 at Woolwich, was son of Johann Leopold Abel (1795–1871), a music-master in Kennington, by his wife Louisa (d. 1864), daughter of Martin Hopkins of Walworth. His paternal grandfather, August Christian Andreas Abel (b. 12 Aug. 1751), was court miniature-painter to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

Abel was attracted to a scientific career by a visit at the age of fourteen to an uncle in Hamburg, A. J. Abel, a mineralogist and a pupil of Berzelius. After a course of chemistry under Dr. Ryan at the Royal Polytechnic Institution, he entered the Royal College of Chemistry, founded in October 1845 under A. W. Hofmann; he was one of the twenty-six original students. Next year he became an assistant, holding the position for five years. In 1851 he was appointed demonstrator of chemistry at St. Bartholomew's Hospital to Dr. [q. v.], and in March 1852 lecturer on chemistry at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in succession to [q. v.] In conjunction with Charles London Bloxam (d. 1887), his assistant and successor there, he published a useful 'Handbook of Chemistry; Theoretical, Practical, and Technical' (1854; 2nd edit. 1858).

Abel became ordnance chemist at Woolwich on 24 July 1854, and he was made chemist to the war department there in January 1856. From 1854 till 1888, when he retired from Woolwich, Abel was the chief official authority on all matters connected with explosives. He was a member of the ordnance select committee, was expert for submarine defence and smokeless powder, and from 1888 until his death was president of the explosives committee. The transformation of arms and ammunition which took place during the thirty-four years of his service at Woolwich necessarily occupied the greater part of his scientific career, though almost every branch of technical science was enriched by his labours. The supersession of black by 'smokeless' powder was due to his researches on guncotton, founded on the attempts of Baron von Lenk to utilise this explosive in 1862. He developed the process of reducing gun-cotton to a fine pulp which enabled it to be worked and stored without danger. These results of his work were published in 1866 in his lectures 'Gun Cotton' and in 'The Modern History of Gunpowder.' Another important research, carried out in conjunction with Captain (afterwards Sir) Andrew Noble, aimed at determining the nature of the chemical changes produced on firing explosives. This work, carried out at great personal risk, is of the highest value and threw new light on the theory of explosives. The conclusions were published in various papers and lectures from 1871 to 1880 (cf. On Explosive Agents, a lecture, Edinburgh, 1871; Researches on Explosives with Capt. Noble, 1875 and 1880). The explosion in Seaham Colliery in 1881 led to the appointment of a royal commission on accidents in coal mines on which he served, and to Abel's researches on dangerous dusts (1882), in which he investigated the part played by dust in bringing about an explosion. In other directions Abel reached equally important results. As an expert in petroleum he devised the Abel open-test, with a flash-point of 100° Fahr., legalised