Alexis Soyer, the most famous chef in Europe, dies in London

Alexis Benoist Soyer, the French chef who had made his name a household word in Britain, dies in London at the age of forty-eight. The long-time at the elite Reform Club in London, he has become famous with his efforts in Ireland during the Potato Famine, running a soup kitchen that helped save thousands of lives. During the recent Crimean War, he had traveled to the front, put British army catering on a far more efficient basis and invented a field kitchen that will still be in use a century later in the British forces. His work in the war had left him ill and weakened, however, and contributes to his death. (By John Osborne)