May, SIR THOMAS ERSKINE

May, SIR THOMAS ERSKINE, Baron Farnborough, born in 1815, was educated at Bedford School, became assistant-librarian of the House of Commons in 1831, clerk-assistant in 1856, and clerk of the House in 1871. He was called to the bar in 1838, was made in 1860 Companion, in 1866 Knight Commander of the Bath, and shortly after his retirement from office in 1886 was raised to the peerage as Baron Farnborough, but died on 18th May of that year. His most important works are A Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings, and Usage of Parliament (1844), which acknowledged as the parliamentary text-book, had gone through six editions before his death and been translated into German and Hungarian; Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III., 1760–1860 (1861–63; 3d ed., with supplementary chapter, 3 vols. 1871), a continuation of Hallam's work to our own times, and of which French and German translations have appeared; and Democracy in Europe: a History (2 vols. 1877), a work characterised by great learning and impartiality.