Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/606

 In 1863 he obtained his majority, and served as assistant adjutant-general in India. On his promotion as lieutenant-colonel he commanded in India the 5th royal Irish lancers from 1871 to 1879. On 4 Sept. 1879 Massy was proceeding with a small escort to Kabul, when the news of the massacre of Sir Louis Cavagnari [q. v.] reached him at Shutargarden; and he at once telegraphed the news to Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts. During the Afghan war of 1879-80 he commanded a cavalry brigade and took a prominent part in the battle of Charasiab on 6 Oct. 1879, capturing 75 pieces of Afghan artillery. During the subsequent operations in the Charde Valley, Massy was despatched in pursuit of the enemy (7 Oct.), but he failed to cut off the Afghan line of retreat. Next taking part in the actions round Kabul, he was ordered (11 Dec. 1879) to start from Sherpur with the cavalry under his command and effect a junction with General Macpherson's brigade. Advancing too far, Massy was cut off by 10,000 Afghans at Killa Kazi, and after an unsuccessful charge and the abandonment of guns he was extricated from a difficult position by the timely arrival of the main body. General Roberts in his report laid the responsibility for the disaster on Massy, who was severely censured and removed from his command. General Roberts's strictures were regarded as unduly harsh, and Massy was soon reappointed to a brigade by George, duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief (Despatches, Lond. Gaz. 16 Jan. and 4 May 1880). He received the Afghan medal with two clasps.

He became major-general on 23 Aug. 1886 and was nominated C.B. on 21 June 1887. He held the command of the troops in Ceylon from 1888 to 1893, when he attained the rank of lieutenant-general. On 4 Oct. 1896 he obtained the colonelcy of the 5th royal Irish lancers, and on 1 April 1898 was placed on the retired list. He received the reward for distinguished service. He was a J.P. and D.L. for co. Tipperary, and high sheriff in 1899. He died on 20 Sept. 1906 at the family residence, Grantstown Hall, Tipperary. He married in 1869 Elizabeth Jane, eldest daughter of Major-general Sir Thomas Seaton, K.C.B., of Ackworth, Suffolk, and widow of George Arnold, by whom he left issue one daughter, Gertrude Annette Seaton, who married in 1893 Colonel James George Cockburn (d. 1900).

 MASTERS, MAXWELL TYLDEN (1833–1907), botanist, born at Canterbury on 15 April 1833, was youngest son of William Masters (1796-1874), a nurseryman of scientific ability, known as the raiser of elm and other seedlings, as a hybridiser of passion 'flowers, aloes and cacti, and as the compiler of a valuable catalogue, 'Hortus Duroverni' (1831); he corresponded with Sir William Hooker [q. v.] from 1846 to 1862, became alderman and mayor of Canterbury, and was founder of the museum there in 1823.

Masters, after education at King's College, London, of which he became an associate, qualified L.S.A. in 1854 and M.R.C.S. in 1856. He graduated M.D. in absentia at St. Andrews in 1862.

While at King's College he attended the lectures of Edward Forbes [q. v.] and those of Lindley at the Chelsea physic garden. On the acquisition of the Fielding herbarium by the university of Oxford, Masters was appointed sub-curator under Dr. Daubeny, the professor of botany, and his first paper, one on air-cells in aquatic plants, was communicated to the Ashmolean Society in 1853. He delivered courses of lectures on botany at the London and Royal Institutions, and was an unsuccessful candidate in 1854 for the botanical chair which Edward Forbes vacated at King's College on his appointment to Edinburgh; Robert Bentley [q. v. Suppl. I] was elected. From 1855 to 1868 Masters was lecturer on botany at St. George's Hospital medical school. In 1856 he began to practise as a general practitioner at Peckham.

It was at this period that his attention was first drawn to the study of malformations, especially those of the flower, and their connection with the theory of the foliar nature of its parts. His first teratological paper, one on a monstrosity in Saponaria, was published in 1857 in the 'Journal of the Linnean Society,' of which he became a fellow in 1860. After other preliminary papers, his volume on 'Vegetable Teratology,' to which he was prompted by his friend Samuel James Salter, F.R.S. (1825-97), and which was on the whole his most original contribution to science, was issued by the 