John E. B. Mayor

Early life and education

Mayor was born at Baddegama, British Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), on 28 January 1825, the son of the Rev. Robert Mayor and Charlotte Bickersteth. His mother belonged to the Bickersteth family and was the sister of Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale, and the Rev. Edward Bickersteth. Joseph Bickersteth Mayor was his younger brother. Mayor was sent to England to be educated at Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge.^[1]

Career

From 1863 to 1867, Mayor was librarian of the University of Cambridge. In 1872, he succeeded H. A. J. Munro as Kennedy Professor of Latin, a post he held until his death in 1910. His edition of the thirteen Satires of Juvenal was known for its extensive illustrative quotations. His Bibliographical Clue to Latin Literature (1875), based on Emil Hübner's Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die römische Litteraturgeschichte, was used by students of Latin literature, and his edition of Cicero's Second Philippic was widely used.^[2]

Mayor also edited the English works of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (1876); Thomas Baker's History of St John's College, Cambridge (1869); Richard of Cirencester's Speculum historiale de gestis regum Angliae 447–1066 (1863–1869); Roger Ascham's Schoolmaster (new ed., 1883); the Latin Heptateuch (1889); and the Journal of Philology.^[2]

According to the Enciklopedio de Esperanto, Mayor learned Esperanto in 1907 and gave a speech against Esperanto reform at the World Congress of Esperanto held at Cambridge.^{[citation needed]}

Vegetarianism

Mayor succeeded Francis William Newman as president of the Vegetarian Society^[3] in 1884 and remained in that position until his death.^[1] He was a strict vegetarian and teetotaller, but it was noted that "he never sought to impose his rule of abstinence on others".^[4] Mayor authored What is Vegetarianism? in 1886. His vegetarian writings were published in Plain Living and High Thinking in 1897.^[5]

In October 1905, a meeting was held at Congregational Memorial Hall, London, for octogenarian vegetarians. Speakers in attendance included Mayor, then aged 84; Joseph Wallace; T. A. Hanson; C. P. Newcombe; Samuel Saunders; and Samuel Pitman, brother of Isaac Pitman.^[6]

Mayor ate a strict vegetarian diet and lived off twopence a day. His diet consisted of bread, fruit, porridge and vegetables, with lemonade as his only drink.^[7]

Death

Mayor died on 1 December 1910 in Cambridge. He is buried in the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge.^[1]