John Edwin Sandys

“ Until 1908 he preached in the college chapel and occasionally in the university church. He printed his sermons immediately after delivery, without his name, but with the date and place, and with an appendix of interesting notes. His style in the pulpit reflected the best seventeenth and eighteenth century examples, and his sermons dealt exhaustively with subjects of importance. 'The Spanish Reformed Church' was the theme of two sermons in 1892 and 1895, the first of which was partly delivered in the university church and was published in 'Spain, Portugal, the Bible' (1895) . ”

“ John's College, Cambridge, born in London on 27 May 1840, was son of William Taylor, tea-dealer, by Catherine his wife. The family had formerly been settled near Woburn in Bedfordshire. His grandfather, a man of energy and foresight, had come to London, where he acquired considerable property in Regent Street, then in course of construction. He is said to have been the first job-master in London. ”

“ A selection of his sermons was edited for the Cambridge University Press by the Rev. H. F. Stewart in 1911, after his death.
Mayor, who was unmarried, died suddenly of heart failure within two months of completing the 86th year of his age, on 1 Dec. 1910, while he was preparing to leave his Cambridge residence, with a view to reading prayers in the college chapel. He was buried in St. Giles's cemetery, on the Huntingdon road, Cambridge. Mayor possessed an unusual power of accumulating knowledge. ”

“ His annotated copies of Juvenal and Seneca are among the books presented by his executors to the library of his college, and his interleaved Latin dictionaries are among those presented to the university library, which he named as the ultimate destination of his biographical collections. Of the rest of his library more than 18,000 volumes were sold in Cambridge after his death (Catling's catalogue of sale on 14–18 March 1911) .
A presentation portrait printed by (Sir) Hubert (von) Herkomer in 1891 is in the hall of St John's College. ”

“ A fourth edition of the first volume appeared in 1886.
In 1853 Mayor returned for life to St. John's, at first as an assistant tutor or lecturer in classics, but the vastness of his learning prevented him from being a good lecturer. He was ordained deacon in 1855 and priest in 1857. He subsequently kept the act for the B.D. degree (taking the subject of vernacular services versus Latin) , preached a Latin and an English sermon, but never took the degree (The Eagle, xxiii. 107) . ”

“ His physical constitution was remarkably strong. He attributed the vigour of his old age to his strict adherence to vegetarian diet, which he adopted in middle life and thenceforth championed with enthusiasm. ”

“ In 1863 he published 'Geometrical Conics, including Anharmonic Ratio and Projection.' This was followed, in 1872, by a text-book entitled 'The Elementary Geometry of Conics,' which passed through several editions, and, in 1881, by a larger treatise, 'An Introduction to the Ancient and Modern Geometry of Conics,' including a brief but masterly sketch of the early history of geometry. ”

“ He printed the four earliest codes of the college statutes (1859) . He transcribed the admissions to the college from 1630, and his transcript was edited as far as 1715 by himself (1882–93) . and as far as 1767 by Mr. R. F. Scott (1903) . He calendared Baker's voluminous MSS. in the university library. He supplied material to Prof. Willis and John Willis Clark [q. v. Suppl. II] for their 'Architectural History of Cambridge,' and he gave every aid and encouragement to Charles Henry Cooper [q. v.] ”

“ A critical edition of the text of the whole of Cicero's rhetorical works followed in 1903. He also issued compact and lucid commentaries on Cicero's ‘Speeches against Catiline’ (1871) , and the speech ‘De Imperio Gnæi Pompeii’ (1879) , and on Horace's ‘Epistles’ (1885) ; he contributed to Postgate's ‘Corpus Poëtarum Latinorum’ a critical text of the ‘Thebais’ and ‘Achilleis’ of Statius (1904) ”

“ From 1870 to 1878 he was an energetic and indefatigable mountaineer, in spite of his bulky physique. He wrote for the 'Alpine Journal' (vi. 232–43) a record of a notable ascent of Monte Rosa from Macugnaga in 1872 (see also T. G. Bonney, in the Eagle, xxx. 73–77) . He was a member of the Alpine Club from 1873 till death.
In 1877–8, during the Cambridge University commission, Taylor took an active part in the discussions on the revision of the statutes of the college. In 1879 he was chosen, with the Master (Dr. Bateson) and Mr. ”