various great Exhibitions, including that of Paris in 1881, and a grand prix at the earlier Paris Exhibition of 1867 for his regenerative furnace. In 1874 he received the Royal Albert Medal for his researches on heat, and in 1875 the Bessemer medal of the Iron and Steel Institute. Moreover, a few days before his death, the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers awarded him the Howard Quinquennial prize for his improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel. At the request of his widow, it took the form of a bronze copy of the 'Mourners,' a piece of statuary by J. G. Lough, originally exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, in the Crystal Palace. In 1869 the University of Oxford conferred upon him the high distinction of D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Law); and besides being a member of several foreign societies, he was a Dignitario of the Brazilian Order of the Rose, and Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
Rich in honours and the appreciation of his contemporaries, in the prime of his working power and influence for good, and at the very climax of his career, Sir William Siemens was called away. The news of his death came with a shock of surprise, for hardly any one knew he had been ill. He died on the evening of Monday, November 19, 1883, at nine o'clock. A fortnight before, while returning from a managers' meeting of the Royal Institution, in company with his friend Sir Frederick Bramwell, he tripped upon the kerbstone of the pavement, after crossing Hamilton Place, Piccadilly, and fell heavily to the ground, with his left arm under him. Though a good deal shaken by the fall, he attended at his office in Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, the next and for several following days; but the exertion proved too much for him, and almost for the first time in his busy life he was compelled to lay up. On his last visit to
