who, along with the whole family, received it with overwhelming grief.
Austen’s Obituary appeared in the local Jersey ‘Evening Post’ and was fulsome in its praise, but a powerful testimony to his character and work
appeared in the ‘London Hospital Gazette’, April 1905. Describing not only
the circumstances of Austen’s death, but also the esteem with which the
young man was held, this tribute was preceded by a brief record of Austen’s
life.
… Seldom have words seemed so empty and cold as they do when we attempt
to add a few lines to the above record. So terribly short was his illness that even
yet we can hardly realise the sad truth. Most of our readers knew him as a house
Plate 1.10 Professor Cormack’s assessment of Robert’s efforts in mechanical engineering. It shows that he studied the subject for two-years at UCL, even though in
conversation with Chirnside in 1976,
23 he ‘could not remember’ if he completed the
second year of the course. Photograph courtesy of Royal Society of Chemistry archives,
Thomas Graham House, Cambridge, UK. With special thanks to Rob Stiles
Plate 1.11 Robert’s brother Austen Clement, from ‘Historical Notes … 1917’.
10
1 Robert Le Rossignol
23