Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/323

 physician extraordinary to Edward VII in 1902. He was made hon. LL.D. of Edinburgh in 1884 at the tercentenary of the University. Together with Sir David Brewster and Dr. Charles Murchison he founded the Edinburgh University Club in London in 1864. He was knighted in 1886.

Sieveking, who invented in 1858 an aesthesiometer, an instrument for testing the sensation of the skin, was author of: 'A Treatise on Ventilation' (in German, Hamburg, 1846); 'The Training Institutions for Nurses and the Workhouses' (1849); 'Manual of Pathological Anatomy' (1854, with C. Handfield Jones, the illustrations reproducing excellent water-colours by Sieveking; 2nd edit. 1875, ed. by J. F. Payne); ' On Epilepsy and Epileptiform Seizures' (1858; 2nd edit. 1861); 'Practical Remarks on Laryngeal Disease as illustrated by the Laryngoscope' (1862); 'The Medical Adviser in Life Assurance' (1873; 2nd edit. 1882). He translated Rokitansky's 'Pathological Anatomy' (vol. ii. 1849) and Romberg's 'Nervous Diseases' (2 vols. 1853) for the Sydenham Society. He also edited the 'British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review' from 1855, and contributed largely to medical periodicals, especially on nervous diseases, climatology, and nursing.

Sieveking died at his house, 17 Manchester Square, W., on 24 Feb. 1904, and was buried in the family grave at Abney Park cemetery, Stoke Newington. A portrait painted in 1866 by W. S. Herrick and a pastel picture by Carl Hartmann done in 1847 are in the possession of his family. A posthumous portrait is at the Royal Academy of Medicine. There is a brass tablet to his memory in the ancient chapel of the crypt beneath St. John's church, Clerkenwell, on which he is described as 'an ardent worker for the ambulance department of the Order (of St. John of Jerusalem) since 1878.' He had been gazetted a Knight of Grace in 1896.

Sieveking married, on 5 Sept. 1849, Jane, daughter of John Ray, J.P., of Finchley, and had issue eight sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom, Florence Amelia, married firstly Dr. L. Wooldridge and secondly Prof. E. H. Starling, F.R.S., and has translated some of Metchnikoff's works. A son, Mr. A. Forbes Sieveking, F.S.A., is well known as a writer on gardens and fencing.



SIMMONS, JOHN LINTORN ARABIN (1821–1903), field marshal and colonel commandant royal engineers, born at Langford, Somersetshire, on 12 Feb. 1821, was fifth son of twelve children of Captain Thomas Simmons {d. 1842), royal artillery, of Langford, by his wife Mary, daughter of John Perry, of Montego Bay, for many years judge of the supreme court of Jamaica, his father was author of the treatise 'On the Constitution and Practice of Courts Martial,' which was long an authorised textbook. Six out of his eight brothers were officers in the army.

Educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey and at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, Simmons received his first commission in the royal engineers on 14 Dec. 1837, and after professional instruction at Chatham embarked for Canada in June 1839. He was promoted first lieutenant on 15 Oct. following. While in Canada he was employed for three years in the then disputed territory on the north-east frontier of the United States of America, constructing works of defence, and making military explorations.

Returning to England in March 1845, Simmons was stationed in the London district for a year, was then an instructor in fortification at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and being promoted second captain on 9 Nov. 1846, was appointed next month inspector of railways under the railway commissioners. In 1850 he became secretary to the railway commissioners, and when the commission was absorbed by the board of trade on 11 Oct. 1851, secretary of the new railway department of the board.

In Oct. 1853 Simmons travelled on leave in Eastern Europe, where war had been declared between Turkey and Russia. After his arrival at Constantinople, he was of service to the British ambassador. Lord [q. v.], in reporting on the defences of the Turkish Danube frontier and of the Bosphorus, and he also visited with Sir Edmimd Lyons's squadron the Black Sea ports.

Promoted first captain on 17 Feb. 1854, he was preparing to leave for England when on 20 March the British ambassador sent him to warn Omar Pasha, the Turkish commander on the Danube, of the intention of the Russians to cross the Lower Danube near Galatz. With great promptitude and energy he found Omar at Tertuchan, and the hasty retreat of the Turkish army prevented catastrophe. Meanwhile in reply to a summons from the board of trade to 