File 1 - Admissions (1861)

Joseph Bickersteth Mayor was born in the Cape of Good Hope, on October 24th 1828, to Rev. Robert Mayor and his wife Charlotte. He was educated at Rugby School—of which he would later become a Governor—before going up to Cambridge in 1847; following his two older brothers, Robert and John. All three Mayor brothers would become Fellows; Joseph was appointed Fellow in 1852, the year after he took his degree. He was also given the position of College Lecturer in Moral Science.

Mayor was ordained as a Deacon in 1859, and a Priest in 1860, the same year that he became a Tutor at Cambridge. Three years later, his marriage to Miss A.J. Grote made it necessary to give up his position at the College, and he instead became the Head Master of a school in London. This was later followed by his appointment as a Professor at King’s College, first in Classical Literature and then in Moral Philosophy. He left his post in 1883, and moved to live out the rest of his life in Kingston-on-Thames.

There, Mayor undertook important work with local schools, but most of his focus fell to writing. He published many different works, the most important of which include his translations of Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Epistle of St. James, Clement of Alexandria, and Epistle of St. Jude and Second Epistle of Peter.

Mayor died on the 29th of November, 1916.

Obituary in the Eagle, vol. 38, Easter 1917, p. 323