Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/540

 daughter of David Rogerson, J.P., provost of Dumbarton, and had four sons and one daughter. He died of heart disease, at Bournemouth, 12 April 1921.  STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL, first Baron (1820-1914), Canadian financier. [See Smith, DONALD ALEXANDER.]

STRUTT, JOHN WILLIAM, third (1842–1919), mathematician and physicist, was born at Langford Grove, Maldon, Essex, 12 November 1842, the eldest son of John James Strutt, second baron, by his marriage with Clara Elizabeth La Touche, eldest daughter of Captain Richard Vicars, R.E., and sister of Hedley Shafto Johnstone Vicars [q.v.]. As is said to have been the case with so many men of exceptional talent, he was a seven months' child. Throughout his infancy and youth he was of frail physique; his education was repeatedly interrupted by ill-health, and his prospects of attaining maturity appeared precarious. He entered Eton at the age of ten, but stayed only one half, a large part of which was spent in the school sanatorium. After three years at a private school at Wimbledon he went to Harrow, where his stay was almost as short as at Eton. In the autumn of 1857 he was put under the care of the Rev. George Townsend Warner, who took pupils at Torquay. Here he remained for four years, the surroundings proving more congenial and his health better than at his former schools. Having competed unsuccessfully for a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1860, he entered the college as a fellow-commoner in October 1861, and at once commenced reading for the mathematical tripos under Dr. E. J. Routh [q.v.], of Peterhouse. Although he was ‘coached’ privately during the summer he was not at first equal in mathematical attainments to the best of his contemporaries. But his exceptional abilities soon enabled him to overtake all his competitors, and it caused no surprise that the senior wranglership fell to him in January 1865. There still lingers in Cambridge a tradition as to the lucidity and literary finish of his answers in this examination. One examiner is said to have averred that they could have been printed without revision, and another that ‘Strutt's answers were better than the books’. The fine sense of literary style which he displayed in the press of examinations never deserted him; every paper he wrote, even on the most abstruse subject, is a model of clearness and simplicity of diction, and conveys the impression of having been written without effort.

As a boy, Strutt had shown a distinct interest, although perhaps nothing more, in experimental science; his pocket money was spent on sulphuric acid, magnets, and an electric machine, while both in school and undergraduate days he took a great interest in the then infant science of photography. Four months before the tripos examination he had been awarded the Sheepshanks exhibition in astronomy, but astronomy at this time offered little to attract a powerful mind, and it was his earlier tastes and interests that determined his choice of occupation after he had taken his degree. He began by taking a course of chemical analysis with G. D. Liveing, the newly-appointed professor of chemistry. The choice of subject may seem strange, but the only experimental courses then available were those in chemistry, mineralogy, and certain biological sciences, a narrowness of choice which Strutt greatly resented. ‘It wasted three or four years of my life’, he said in later years. From now on his academic career was that normal to a man of his intellectual attainments. The first Smith's prize fell to him in 1865, he was elected a fellow of his college in the next year, and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1873.

In 1871 he married Evelyn, daughter of James Maitland Balfour, of Whittingehame, East Lothian, and sister of Mr. Arthur (afterwards Earl of) Balfour, the future prime minister. This step involved the resignation of his fellowship at Trinity and resulted in a temporary severance of his connexion with Cambridge. The year after his marriage, a severe attack of rheumatic fever led to his devoting a winter to travel in Egypt and Greece. Shortly after his return his father died (June 1873), and he succeeded as third Baron Rayleigh, taking up his residence in the family seat, Terling Place, Witham, Essex. Although, as throughout his life, his primary interest was scientific research, he now found himself compelled to devote a part of his time to the management of his estates, which were somewhat embarrassed by the prevailing agricultural depression. He acquired, or perhaps rather had forced upon him, a considerable knowledge of agriculture, which, combined with his general scientific knowledge and acumen, led to his practice in estate management being in many respects in advance of the time. He was especially interested in experimenting with artificial 514