Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/223

 colour. As the outcome of a research on the effects of admixture of impurities on the mechanical properties of pure metals, the alloys-research committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was established (1889), Roberts-Austen becoming 'reporter' to the committee and supplying five reports, a sixth being under revision at his death. In the first (1891) he described his automatic recording pyrometer, 'by means of which the temperature of furnaces or masses of metal, and the exact time at which each change in temperature occurs, are recorded in the form of a curve on a moving photographic plate.' The work of alloys-research he thus initiated is now carried on at the National Physical Laboratory. The practical value of these labours led the council of the institution to enroll him an honorary life member (Animal Report Inst. Mechan. Eng. 1898, pp. 5, 30).

Roberts-Austen, who was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 3 June 1875, served on the council (1890-2), and was Bakerian lecturer for 1896, his subject being the diffusion of metals (Phil. Trans. vol. 187 A.). An original member of the Physical Society in 1874, he was the first secretary, and he acted also as honorary general secretary of the British Association, 1897–1902. As president of the Iron and Steel Institute (1899–1901) he rendered signal services during his term of office. From his hand, on 18 July 1899, Queen Victoria accepted the institute's Bessemer gold medal in commemoration of the progress made in the metallurgy of steel during her reign. He was elected in 1901 an honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (where he gave the Forrest lecture on 23 April 1902), was a vice-president of the Chemical Society and of the Society of Arts, and member of various foreign societies. The University of Durham conferred the honorary degree of D.C.L. in 1897, and Victoria University, Manchester, that of D.Sc. in 1901. In 1889 he was created a chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur, France, and was made C.B. in 1890 and K.C.B. in 1899. At the Royal Institution, the British Association meetings, and at the Chemical and other societies, Roberts-Austen held a high reputation as lecturer and demonstrator. His attractive personality made him socially popular; he had a keen sense of humour and was an admirable mimic. He was an intimate friend of Ruskin, whose works influenced him greatly in early life. He died at the Royal Mint on 22 Nov. 1902, and was buried at Canterbury. He married in 1876 Florence Maude, youngest daughter of Richard William Alldridge, of Old Charlton, Kent; he had no issue.

Roberts-Austen's chief independent publication was 'An Introduction to Metallurgy' (1891; 6th edit, revised, 1910), a work indispensable to researchers in metallurgy. He contributed the article 'Metallography' in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' 10th edition. The Royal Society's 'Catalogue of Scientific Papers' enumerates seventy-four papers by Roberts-Austen, a few jointly with other authors (1868-1900). They deal with the absorption of hydrogen by electro-deposited iron, the analysis of alloys by means of the spectroscope (with Sir Norman Lockyer), the action of the projectile and of the explosives on the tubes of steel guns, and memoirs on the physical properties of metals and alloys. Before the Society of Arts he read, in 1895, a paper with Mrs. Lea Merritt on ' Mural Painting by the Aid of Soluble Silicates and Metallic Oxides.'

 ROBERTSON, DOUGLAS MORAY COOPER LAMB ARGYLL (1837–1909), ophthalmic surgeon, born in Edinburgh in 1837, was son of Dr. John Argyll Robertson, surgeon and lecturer in the extra-academical school of medicine and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1846. His father took a special interest in ophthalmic surgery and was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Eye Dispensary in 1822. Douglas was educated successively at the Edinburgh Institution, at Neuwied in Germany, and at the universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews. He graduated M.D. at St. Andrews in 1857, and in the same year was appointed house surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh. He then went to Berlin to study ophthalmic surgery under von Graefe. On his return to Edinburgh he acted for several sessions as assistant to Prof. John Hughes Bennett [q. v.], and in that capacity conducted the first course of practical physiology held in the University of Edinburgh. He was succeeded by Prof. William Rutherford [q.v. Suppl. I]. In 1862 he was admitted F.R.C.S. Edin-