for granting terms to telephone companies, which were finally completed by his successor (Mr. Shaw Lefevre). He introduced schemes for facilitating savings, especially the ‘stamp slip deposits,’ which led to a great increase in the investments through the post-office savings banks. He circulated over a million copies of a pamphlet called ‘Aids to Thrift,’ explaining the advantages offered. One of his last measures was a plan which gave greater facility for the purchase of annuities and insurances. A great number of new banks was opened during his tenure of office, and the number of depositors during the last three years increased by nearly a million. Fawcett spared no pains in obtaining information, arranging details, and conferring with his subordinates. He improved their position, and took especial satisfaction in extending the employment of women. It was said that he erred from an excess of conscientiousness and perhaps of good nature. But his interest in the efficiency of his office and the welfare of the persons employed won the gratitude of those chiefly concerned, and gave him extraordinary popularity in the country. Fawcett's connection with Cambridge remained unaffected. In 1877 an election took place for the mastership of Trinity Hall, when the votes of the electors were equally divided between Fawcett and Mr. Henry Latham, who had for thirty years been tutor of the college. After several adjournments both candidates retired in favour of Sir Henry J. S. Maine, who was unanimously elected. At the end of November 1882 Fawcett had an attack of diphtheria and typhoid fever. For many days he was in imminent danger, and received extraordinary marks of sympathy from all classes. An apparently complete recovery concealed a permanent shock to his constitution. He caught cold at the end of October 1884, and died at Cambridge, after a short illness, 6 Nov. following. He was buried at Trumpington 10 Nov., in presence of a great crowd of friends, colleagues, and representatives of various public bodies. His wife and his only child, Philippa, born 1868, survive him.
In 1882 Fawcett was created doctor of political economy by the university of Würzburg. In 1882 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1884 a corresponding member of the Institute of France. The university of Glasgow gave him the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1883, and in the same year elected him lord rector. The delivery of the customary address was prevented by his death. Many honours were paid to his memory. A national subscription provided a monument in Westminster Abbey (by Mr. Gilbert, A.R.A.). From the same fund a scholarship tenable by the blind of both sexes was founded at Cambridge, and a sum paid towards providing a playground at the Royal Normal College for the Blind at Norwood. A statue has been erected in the market-place at Salisbury; a portrait painted by Mr. Herkomer was presented to Cambridge by subscription of members of the university; and a drinking-fountain, commemorative of his services to the rights of women, has been erected on the Thames Embankment. Memorials have also been placed in Salisbury Cathedral, &c., and at Trumpington Church.
The only portraits, except numerous photographs taken during life, were by Mr. Ford Madox Browne (including Mrs. Fawcett), in possession of Sir C. W. Dilke, a chalk drawing, and two oil-paintings by Mr. Harold Rathbone, taken in 1884, and a bust by Mr. Pinker, sculptor of the statue at Salisbury.
Fawcett's writings display a keen and powerful, if rather narrow, intellect. He adhered through life to the radicalism of J. S. Mill; he was a staunch free-trader in economic questions, an earnest supporter of co-operation, but strongly opposed to socialism, and a strenuous advocate of the political and social equality of the sexes. His animating principle was a desire to raise the position of the poor. He objected to all such interference as would weaken their independence or energy, and, though generally favourable on this account to the laissez-faire principle, disavowed it when, as in the case of the Factory Acts, he held that interference could protect without enervating. The kindheartedness displayed in the chivalrous spirit of his public life was equally manifest in his strong domestic affections, and in the wide circle of friendships which he cultivated with singular fidelity and thoughtfulness. He was the simplest and most genial of companions, equally at ease with men of all ranks, and especially attached to the friends of his boyhood and youth. The recognition of his high qualities was quickened by his gallant bearing under his blindness. He acted throughout on the principle, which he always inculcated upon his fellow-sufferers, that a blind man should as far as possible act and be treated like a seeing man. He kept up the recreations to which he had been devoted. He was a sturdy pedestrian, and a very powerful skater, skating fifty or sixty miles a day at the end of his life. He was very fond of riding in later years, showing astonishing nerve, and even joining in a gallop with the harriers on Newmarket Heath. His favourite sport was fishing, and he showed remarkable skill, as well as unflagging interest, in this amusement, both in the salmon
