Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/277

 for use in warfare, and in 1902 Field-Marshal Sir John French wrote as follows:

Many thanks for yours of the 20th.

I am obliged to get special permission from the W.O. to try any new inventions here. This I hope to obtain shortly and we will then proceed.

It shall be very glad if you will kindly come to stay with me when the trials are going on.

The close of the great European warfare now in full tide is likely to witness the fulfilment of H. H.'s prophecy: "The world watches Marconi as one of the gifted leaders born for our time. His system is a powerful factor in our crusade of cheap imperial communications."

It is interesting to recall that H. H.'s last public utterance in the City of London was a plea for the establishment of penny-a-word telegrams.

The Right Honourable Sir Vezey Strong, K.C.V.O., wrote as follows:

I enclose you a brief notice of the Banquet given by the Worshipful Company of Plumbers on the 20th December, 1912, at which your father, Sir John Henniker Heaton, was an honoured guest, and at which, as Master of the Company, it was my privilege to preside.

I think you will find that the last public pronouncement by your father, of his hopes and aspirations for the further extension of the beneficent work to which he devoted so much of his life, was made on this