himself a speaker of distinction. He set himself to reform procedure, and during the stormy debates on Irish questions in O'Connell's time, and afterwards on free trade, maintained order firmly and impartially. He was very dignified, strong, and tactful, and the business of the house benefited greatly by his election (Walpole, Life of Lord John Russell, i. 323). A volume of his decisions was published by the Hon. Robert Bourke in 1857, and to him is due the removal of many unsuitable forms now forgotten. In 1857, having served longer than any other speaker except Onslow, he decided to retire, and withdrew on 11 March. He was then raised to the peerage on 11 April as Viscount Eversley of Heckfield, and received a pension. He was nominated a church estates commissioner, which office he resigned in 1859 on becoming an ecclesiastical commissioner, and was a trustee of the British Museum. Though often present, he rarely spoke in the House of Lords, but he busied himself in the public affairs of his county, where he resided at Heckfield; he was high steward of Winchester, governor and lord-lieutenant of the Isle of Wight, colonel of the Hampshire yeomanry, and even down to July 1879 was chairman of quarter sessions. He was made a G.C.B. in 1885. He took a keen interest in sport and in agriculture, and was active almost till the day of his death, 28 Dec. 1888. He died at his house in Hampshire, but was buried beside his wife at Kensal Green cemetery, London, on 2 Jan. 1889. He married, 24 June 1817, Emma Laura, daughter of Samuel Whitbread, M.P. for Bedford (she died in 1857), and by her had three sons, who died young, and three daughters; the title became extinct on his death, but his nephew was created Baron Eversley in 1906.
[Manning's Lives of the Speakers; Walpole's Hist. of England, iii. 480; McCullagh Torrens's Life of Lord Melbourne, ii. 295; Annual Register, 1888; Times, 29 Dec. 1888.]
SHAW-LEFEVRE, Sir JOHN GEORGE (1797–1879), public official, younger brother of Charles Shaw-Lefevre, viscount Eversley [q. v.], was second son of Charles Shaw, who assumed the additional name of Lefevre on his marriage with Helena, daughter and heiress of John Lefevre of Heckfield Place, Hampshire, a gentleman of Huguenot descent. John George was born at 11 Bedford Square, London, on 24 Jan. 1797, and educated at Eton, whence he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating as a senior wrangler in 1818, and becoming a fellow of Trinity in 1819. He then spent some months abroad and made a tour in Italy, devoting himself to acquiring French and Italian. In 1822 he entered at the Inner Temple, was called to the bar in 1825, and before long met with some success as a conveyancer.
In 1832 Shaw-Lefevre was selected by government to settle the divisions of the counties for the purposes of the Reform Act of that year. His recommendations were embodied in a series of reports and maps which were the result of great labour; they were almost all accepted by parliament, and gave general satisfaction. In October 1833 he was elected to parliament as a liberal for Petersfield by a majority of one vote, but lost his seat on petition. Shortly afterwards he was specially selected by Edward Smith Stanley (afterwards thirteenth earl of Derby) [q. v.] to be his under-secretary at the colonial office. Here he at once became a member of the slave compensation commission. At the end of 1834 he was appointed one of the three commissioners to carry into effect the new Poor-law Amendment Act, and one of the commissioners under whose auspices the colony of South Australia was founded. He was also prominently connected at this period with the founding of the London University, of which for twenty years, from 1842 to 1862, he was annually elected vice-chancellor.
The severe work of reorganising the poor-law system told upon Shaw-Lefevre's health, and in 1841 he was transferred to the board of trade as joint-assistant secretary. He was almost immediately appointed one of the committee to inquire into the losses on exchequer bills, and in 1845 of the South Australia committee. In 1843 he became a member of the emigration commission. In 1846 he was requested to mediate as to differences which had arisen between the Royal Scottish Academy, the Edinburgh Royal Institute, and the board of manufactures; in the result he recommended the foundation of the National Academy at Edinburgh. In the same year he was offered but declined the governorship of Ceylon. In 1847, having unsuccessfully contested the representation of the university of Cambridge, he was placed on the ecclesiastical commission. In this new capacity he devoted special attention to the questions of leases of church lands and the patronage of the bishops.
In 1848 Shaw-Lefevre was appointed deputy-clerk of the parliaments, but he still continued his work on commissions. In 1850 he proceeded to Edinburgh for the double purpose of reporting on the fishery board and making arrangements as to the unpopular annuity tax. He became a com-
