Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/329

 for sixty-two years until his death). Settling in London, and disposing of his practice at Twickenham, he was active in the movement for obtaining the charter which was granted on 8 March 1844 to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, of which in due course (1862–3), he became president. He took a prominent part in the efforts of the Royal Agricultural Society to popularise information amongst farmers as to the diseases of animals, and he investigated their causes and means of prevention. In 1857 he carried out an inquiry on the Continent into the cattle plague, which was then committing great ravages, and made a report of eighty-three pages thereon. His information proved useful on a sudden outbreak of the same disease in London in June 1865. The privy council office, owing to doubt of its legal powers, delayed the issue of an order for the slaughtering and burial in quicklime of all diseased animals, until the infection had spread over a great part of England. A veterinary department was improvised at the privy council office to deal with the matter. Simonds was appointed chief inspector and professional adviser, and amongst his helpers was Professor (afterwards Sir) George Thomas Brown [q. v. Suppl. II]. After the stamping out of the outbreak of cattle plague, which was estimated to have cost five millions sterling in money loss alone, it was decided to continue the veterinary department as a permanent branch of the council office, and Simonds remained at its head until November 1871, when he resigned in order to become principal of the Royal Veterinary College in succession to Professor Charles Spooner [q. v.]. Owing to failing health, he retired in June 1881 on a pension, removing to the Isle of Wight. He remained senior consulting veterinary surgeon to the Royal Agricultural Society until his death, at the age of ninety-four years, on 5 July 1904.

He was twice married, his first wife being his cousin, Martha Beart (d. 22 Aug. 1851), by whom he was father of James Sexton Simonds. for some time chief of the metropolitan fire brigade, and of two daughters. His second wife survived him.

 SIMPSON, MAXWELL (1815–1902), chemist, was youngest son of Thomas Simpson, Beach Hill, co. Armagh, where he was born on 15 March 1815. His mother's maiden surname was Browne. After attending Dr. Henderson's school at Newry he entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1832. Here he made the acquaintance of Charles Lever, by whose advice he began to study medicine. He graduated B.A. in 1837, but left Dublin without a medical degree. On a visit to Paris he heard a lecture by the chemist Jean Baptiste Andre Dumas on chemistry, which induced him to study that subject seriously. For two years he worked under Thomas Graham [q. v.] at University College, London. On his marriage in 1845 he returned to Dublin, and in 1847 he became lecturer on chemistry in the Park Street Medical School, Dublin, and proceeded M.B. In 1849, on the closure of the Park Street School, he became a lecturer on chemistry in the Peter Street or 'Original' School of Medicine. In 1851 he was granted three years' leave of absence. He studied in Germany under Adolph Kolbe in Marburg and Robert Bunsen in Heidelberg, and accomplished his first original work. In 1854 he resumed his duties at Dublin, but in 1857 resigned his lecturership and again went to the Continent, working chiefly with Wurtz in Paris till 1859. In 1860 Simpson took a house in Dublin and fitted up a small laboratory in the back kitchen. There he pursued with ardour and success chemical investigations which placed him among the first chemists of his time. One of his earliest results was the discovery of a method of determining the nitrogen in organic compounds difficult to burn. He obtained synthetically for the first time succinic and certain other di- and tri -basic acids (Phil. Trans. 1860, p. 61; Proc. Roy. Soc. 1863, pp. 12, 236), while not a year passed without his publishing one or two papers of the first importance. In 1867 he revisited Wurtz's laboratory in Paris, and for a few subsequent years he lived in London. He acted as examiner at Woolwich, at Coopers Hill for the Indian Civil Service, and in the Queen's University of Ireland. In 1872 he was appointed professor of chemistry in Queen's College, Cork, and held the post till 1891, devoting himself to teaching, to the practical exclusion of research.

In 1862 Simpson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and he was a fellow of the Royal University of Ireland from 1882 to 1891. From Dublin he received the honorary degrees of M.D. in 1864 and LL.D. in 1878, and from the Queen's University of Ireland the honorary degree of D.Sc. in 1882. In 1868 he was elected an honorary fellow of the 