Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/659

 Queen's College, Belfast, serving on the council from 1875 to 1881.

Everett was elected F.R.S. Edinburgh in 1863; F.R.S. London in 1879; and was a vice-president of the Physical Society of London (1900–4). He acted as secretary and subsequently as chairman of the committee of the British Association for investigating the rate of increase of underground temperature downwards (1867–1904), and as secretary of the committee for the selection and nomenclature of dynamical units (1871–3). He was a fellow of the Royal University of Ireland.

Everett wrote many memoirs on dynamics, light, and sound (see Royal Soc. Cat. of Scientific Papers), which deal to a comparatively small extent with his own experimental work. He regarded it as his special mission to expound clearly the results of others. In his books and his lectures he spared no pains to make his statements precise and compact and to bring them up to date. His separate publications were: 1. ‘Units and Physical Constants’ (now ‘The C.G.S. System of Units’), 1875; 3rd edit. 1886; Polish transl., Warsaw, 1885. 2. ‘An Elementary Text Book of Physics,’ 1877; 2nd edit. 1883. 3. ‘Vibratory Motion and Sound,’ 1882. 4. ‘Outlines of Natural Philosophy,’ 1887. He also translated Deschanel's ‘Physics’ (1870; 6th edit. 1882) and, in conjunction with his daughter Alice, Hovestadt's ‘Jena Glass and its Scientific and Industrial Applications’ (1902). The former work was largely rewritten by Everett.

He had many interests outside his professional work. He invented a system of shorthand which he published (1877 and 1883), was one of the pioneers of cycling, and invented a spring hub attachment for the spokes of bicycle wheels.

He moved from Belfast to London in 1898 and eventually settled at Ealing, regularly attending the meetings of scientific societies in London. He died from heart failure at Ealing on 9 Aug. 1904, and was interred at Ipswich. He married on 3 Sept. 1862 Jessie, daughter of Alexander Fraser, afterwards of Ewing Place Congregational Church, Glasgow (of the Frasers of Kirkhill, Inverness), and left three daughters and three sons, of whom the second, Wilfred, is professor of engineering in the Government Engineering College, Sibpur, Calcutta. A portrait by W. R. Symonds, presented in 1898, hangs in the great hall of Queen's College, Belfast.

 EVERETT, WILLIAM (1844–1908), colonel, born on 20 April 1844, was son of Thomas Ellis Everett, rector of Theddingworth, Leicestershire, by Gertrude Louisa, daughter of Joshua Walker, formerly M.P. for Aldborough. Spending a term in 1856 at Marlborough, he entered Sandhurst, and was commissioned as ensign in the 26th foot on 28 June 1864. On 23 August he was transferred to the 33rd foot, and was promoted lieutenant on 11 Jan. 1867. After the return of the regiment to England from the Abyssinian expedition, in which he took no part, he was made adjutant (25 Nov. 1868). He was an excellent draughtsman, and on 1 Feb. 1870 he was appointed instructor in military drawing at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He remained there seven years, becoming captain in his regiment on 8 Sept. 1874. He passed through the Staff College in 1878.

In 1879 he was employed on the Turco-Bulgarian boundary commission under Sir Edward Bruce Hamley [q. v. Suppl. I], and on 12 July he was appointed vice-consul at Erzeroum, to see to the execution of the provisions of the Anglo-Turkish convention. In July 1880 he served on a commission to define the Turco-Persian frontier. During the famine of 1881 he was active at Erzeroum in the administration of Lady Strangford's relief fund. From 11 Sept. 1882 till the end of 1887 he was consul in Kurdistan. An attempt on his life was made on 13 April 1884 by a Roman catholic Armenian on account of his active vigilance, and he was severely injured in the hand and foot. He received 1000l. as compensation, and was made C.M.G. on 6 Aug. 1886.

From 11 Jan. 1888 till September 1892 Everett was professor of military topography at the Staff College. He left his regiment, in which he had become major on 1 July 1881, for an unattached lieut.-colonelcy. He was employed in the intelligence division of the war office as assistant adjutant-general, with the rank of colonel, from 7 June 1893 to 12 March 1901. He was technical adviser of the commission for the delimitation of the Sierra Leone frontier in 1895, and a commissioner for delimiting the Niger frontier in 1896–8, and the Togoland frontier in 1900. He was remarkable for tact, as well as for ‘unfailing industry and a special skill in