Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/594

 was at that time engaged in correspondence arising out of the practice persisted in by the Spanish authorities of firing upon merchant vessels passing by the Spanish forts in the Straits of Gibraltar if they failed to display their national flags. This practice was abandoned in pursuance of an agreement signed in March 1865, but claims for losses occasioned by it still remained unsettled. Among these was one preferred by the owners of the schooner Mermaid of Dartmouth, alleged to have been sunk by a shot fired from the batteries at Ceuta. After much controversy it was referred by agreement to the arbitration of a joint commission, and Walsham, who had thoroughly mastered the details of this and other cases, was appointed to be one of the British commissioners. In 1870, after working for some time at the foreign office during the pressure of business occasioned by the outbreak of the Franco-German war, he proceeded to the Hague, and in 1873 was nominated as secretary of legation at Peking, but did not take up the appointment, withdrawing from the service shortly before his father's death on 10 Aug. 1874, when he succeeded as second baronet. In January 1875 he rejoined the service, being appointed secretary of legation at Madrid and remaining there till May 1878, when he was promoted to be secretary of embassy at Berlin. In 1883 he was transferred to Paris, receiving promotion to the titular rank of minister plenipotentiary, and on 24 Nov. 1885 was made British envoy at Peking. This onerous post he held for seven years, until his health was seriously affected by the combined strain of work and climate. On 31 March 1890 he obtained from the Chinese government the signature of an additional article to the Chefoo agreement of 1875, formally declaring Chungking on the Yang-tsze river to be open to trade on the same footing as other treaty ports. In 1891 a succession of outbreaks occurred in different parts of China, in which missionary establishments were plundered and destroyed and several British subjects lost their lives. Walsham pressed with vigour for adequate measures to ensure punishment of those responsible and better protection in the future, and his efforts, supported by the home government, were attended with considerable success. In April 1892 he was transferred to Bucharest, and retired on a pension in September 1894. He was made K.C.M.G. in Febuary [sic] 1895.

Walsham was a hardworking and meritorious public servant, whose unselfishness and kindness of heart earned for him great popularity, but whose work, partly on account of his naturally retiring disposition, partly in consequence of physical breakdown from over-exertion, scarcely received full public recognition. He died in Gloucestershire on 10 Dec. 1905, and was buried at the ancestral home of the family, Knill Court. He married on 5 March 1867 Florence, only daughter of the Hon. Peter Campbell Scarlett, by whom he left two sons.

 WALSHAM, WILLIAM JOHNSON (1847–1903), surgeon, born in London on 27 June 1847, was elder son of William Walker Walsham by his wife Louisa Johnson. Educated privately at Highbury, he early showed a mechanical bent, and was apprenticed to the engineering firm of Messrs. Maudslay. Soon turning to chemistry and then to medicine, he entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital in May 1867, and obtained the chief school prizes in his first and second years of studentship. In 1869 he gained the gold medal given by the Society of Apothecaries for proficiency in materia medica and pharmaceutical chemistry, and in 1870 was admitted a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. He then proceeded to Aberdeen, where he graduated M.B. and C.M. in 1871 with the highest honours. Returning to London, he was admitted M.R.C.S. England on 17 Nov. 1871. He served the offices of house physician and of house surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital; in 1872-3 was assistant demonstrator of anatomy in the medical school; full demonstrator 1873-80; demonstrator of practical surgery 1880-9; lecturer on anatomy 1889-97, and lecturer on surgery from 1897. Walsham was appointed assistant surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital on 10 March 1881, and took charge of the orthopaedic department. He became full surgeon in 1897.

At the Metropolitan Hospital he was elected surgeon in 1876, taking charge of the department for diseases of the nose and throat. He became consulting surgeon in 1896. He also served as surgeon to the Hospital for Diseases of the Chest from 1876 to 1884. At the Royal College of Surgeons Walsham was elected a fellow on 10 June 1875, was an examiner in anatomy on the conjoint board in 1892, and in surgery from 1897 to 1902.

Walsham was a first-rate teacher of