TRAGEDY IN A STUDY.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 272, 24 January 1929, Page 5

TRAGEDY IN A STUDY.

PROFESSOR FATALLY BURNED. A professor of Edinburgh University was burned to death in a fire at his study, in Edinburgh lately. He was Professor Alexander W. Mair, M.A., who occupied the Greek chair, and was a leading authority on Greek.

The professor’s family, which consists of six sons and six daughters, had all gone to bed at 11 o’clock, leaving him writing in his study. On coming downstairs about 7 o’clock next morning Mrs Mair was startled to see smoke coming from the study. She opened the door and found the room full of smoke and flames. The firemen got the fire under control in about half an hour and found the charred body of Professor Mair in an armchair by the fireplace. He was fully dressed and wearing his boots. He had evidently fallen asleep in the armchair. The position of the

body suggested that he had awakened too late and tried to rise before he had collapsed.

1 It is no* known whether the fire was caused by a spark falling from I the fire on papers which were spread I out, or whether the professor himself had accidentally set the papers alight while smoking. One young fireman, William Rob- | ertson, forced his way into the room as soon as he arrived, but could not see anything for smoke. His face was scorched when he came out. Other firemen said the room was an absolute furnace, and the whole study was burned out.

Miss Betty Mair, the eldest but one of the 12 children, said her mother got the family into the garden and summoned the fire brigade. Her father, she sa.d, often tore up papers for which he had no further use and thew them into the fireplace. He slept in the study very often.

| Professor Mair was working on articles of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He had just finished a translation of a Greek work, which is to be published in about a fortnight. The walls were lined with a valuable collection of books, which were destroyed.

[ The professor was regarded in the university as a kindly old gentleman with a deep sense of humour. He took a close interest in the students, and often coached those who were not able to nay an outside coach and never asked a penny for it.