We much regret to record the death of Lord Eversley
at the age of ninety-six. It was difficult to believe that one whom much younger men found invidiously strong and active till quite recently was a member of Lord Russell's Ministry of 1865-6. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, as he was then, made his .first speech in the house of Commons in 1863, when he spoke on the fitting-out in British ports of the ' Alabama ' and other Confederate cruisers. In his old age he told a correspondent . of the Times that it was the best speech he ever made. It was the first speech to be telegraphed in full to America. As a Gladstonian Minister, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre was notable for his services as First Commissioner of Works ; he was an enthusiast for his subject, which he studied most seriously, and his taste in planning civic improvements was generally sound. Lord Eversley's chief claim to public gratitude, however, was his warfare—it amounted to nothing less sometimes—on behalf of open spaces. He was the founder of the Commons Preservation Society, and when people enjoy commons and such places which are now free for ever they would do well to remember that, but for Lord Eversley's struggles, the attempt to enclose manorial spaces might have ended to the public disadvantage. • *
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