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BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

OF DEATHS,

FOR 1829.

B.

BANNISTER, John William, Esq. August, 1829, at Sierra Leone, in the prime of life. Mr. Bannister was Chief Justice, and Judge of the Court of Admiralty in that colony. He was second son of the late John Bannister, Esq. of Steyning, in the county of Sussex. Mr. Bannister had recovered from several attacks of the ordinary sickness of the country, but sank under a fever lately introduced. To his family, and to numerous friends, his loss will prove a lasting affliction, although it is a consolation to them to know, that in the performance of his judicial duties, and in promoting every good work, during a residence of sixteen months in the colony, he gained the respect and the love of all its inhabitants, without exception of colour or station. Mr. Bannister was brought up in the navy, and served as a midshipman from 1803, at the early age of nine years, until the end of the last American war, during which he was made acting Lieutenant by Admiral Sir J. B. Warren, for his gallantry in the Guerrière at the time of her capture. He was, in 1814, confirmed in this rank, after seeing much hard and honourable service on the North American station. From his first introduction into the navy, he was generally fortunate in sailing with distinguished captains; and in all his ships he was, as a youth, a favourite with his officers of all ranks. After the peace, he left active service in the navy, at twenty-one years

of age, with the reputation of being a good seaman and a daring officer: he lingered long upon the hope of being employed again usefully at sea, and offered to accompany Captain Tuckey to Congo, and to serve in other expeditions. In 1813, Mr. Bannister was a Lieutenant of the Recruit sloop of war, when she was compelled by stress of weather to seek shelter in Sydney, in Cape Breton, and to winter in that port. The officers of the ship were living in the usual terms of friendship with the society of that place, bnt unhappily her captain was not of sound intellect; and in consequence of a misunderstanding with some labouring people, he ordered his marines to fire upon them, when an inhabitant was killed. The usual steps were taken by the law authorities, and the captain escaped by a well-substantiated plea of insanity. The marines were pardoned on the grounds generally governing such cases. It was considered right, however, to include Mr. Bannister in the case; but the prosecution was abandoned in a preliminary stage, when the Chief-Justice delivered the following testimony in open court; -"I consider it as an essential duty, arising out of my situation as ChiefJustice of this Island, to clear from any malignant or malicious insinuation or misrepresentation the character of any innocent person who may be brought before me. I therefore certify, upon the oath of a Judge, that John William Bannister, a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy,

now serving on board his Majesty's ship-of-war Recruit, was brought before me on a most vexatious charge of having assisted Capt., of that sloop, in a riot, which occasioned murder, for which Capt. and four marines are now in gaol awaiting their trial for the said crime. On my examining into the grounds of the charge against Lieut. Bannister, nothing appears of the slightest nature to implicate him in the most distant degree, but, on the contrary, his conduct and deportment in every point of view was truly honourable, humane, and highly praiseworthy." (Signed) "A. C. DODD, Chief-Justice. March Term, 1813." The means by which a man of vigorous intellect gains knowledge are not always to be easily traced. Mr. Bannister's life was one of almost unvarying activity; yet he acquired much information, and could turn what he acquired to a good practical account. Although he quitted school* too early to have there made much proficiency, even in common learning, masters were provided in most of his ships; and upon returning from the Mediterranean before the American war, he was sent for some time, with great benefit, to an eminent naval teacher at Portsmouth. Always properly appreciating the value of literature, he pursued general studies at home with assiduity after the peace, and then advanced himself in the mathematics under good instructors. In 1819, Mr. Bannister located a tract of land in Upper Canada, and entered earnestly into Colonial interests; some of which he endeavoured to promote by a pamphlet published in London in 1822, entitled "Sketches of Plans for settling in Upper Canada a portion of the unemployed Labourers of Great Britain and Ireland." Perceiving in Canada that influence might be gained through the practice of the Law, he came honie, and was called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple in 1826, with the intention of returning to North America. In 1828, however, he went as Chief-Justice to Sierra Le. one; fearless alike of the perils of that climate, as of those which he had experienced in his naval career, and endued with the same ardour to rise in his lately adopted as in his original profession. In

that colony, as elsewhere, the energy and kindliness of Mr. Bannister's character did not fail to be developed. He performed his judicial duties exemplarily to all, and especially impressed the coloured people with a conviction of his just estimate of their rights and claims.* Great, indeed, as the loss is which his family has sustained in his death, it is exceeded by what is felt in Africa, for one of the most zealous of her friends. New Monthly Magazine.

BAVERSTOCK, John, Esq.; Feb. 11, 1829; at his house in Walcot Buildings, Bath; aged nearly 90,

Mr. Baverstock was born at Alton in Hampshire, May 10. 1739, and was educated at the then eminent school of the Rev. Mr. Willis, of Holybourne, near that town. He was many years in business at Marlborough, in Wiltshire; and was upwards of thirty years the senior member of the corporation of that town. During his continuance in active employment, he did not neglect the cultivation of literature, and when, by competent circumstances, he was enabled to retire, he applied himself to it with diligence and method. With the Classics he was conversant; but with the literary history of his country, with the works of the best English authors, and particularly with those of Milton and Shakspeare, whom he passionately admired, he was minutely and critically acquainted. Those two great poets he knew almost by heart, and to the latest hour of his life he could repeat long passages from their works with peculiar emphasis and delight. For nearly the last twenty years of his life he had been totally blind; but, by the kindness of Providence, that circumstance did not detract, by any unsightliness of appearance, from the general effect of his dignified and pleasing countenance, which was combined with a manly and athletic form. The expression of the mind still seemed to remain in the eyes, although their light was gone; but still happier was it that the intellectual light "shone inward; "and in his sphere of action

* A woman of colour complained to him that her young daughter was detained, under gross circumstances, by a white resident in Sierra Leone, and upon the ordinary messengers being re

* At Wateringbury, in Kent, under sisted in executing an order for restoring

the Rev. Mr. Cowper.

Republished in 1826.

her, Mr. Bannister personally compelled obedience to the writ,

and circle of acquaintance he will be
long remembered as a bright example
how much, by improving the faculties
when in possession of them, by fixing
the thoughts on worthy objects, by dili.
gent reading, and patient observation,
not only the sorrows which weigh upon
the soul, but external bodily misfor-
tunes, may be alleviated and compen-
sated. It has been said that one of the
preparations for old age should be
heroic thoughts; and that the repetition
of noble sentiments is an improvement
of the mind. To this exercise Mr.
Baverstock was peculiarly attached :
it soothed, no doubt, the solitary hours
of blindness; it gratified his friends in
those of social intercourse.

He was a great lover of music; and
the band of the Pump-room, Bath, an-
nually enjoyed from him a benefaction
of cake and wine on Twelfth-day.

He was fond of flowers; and even
when

"Not to him returned
The sight of vernal bloom or summer's
rose,"

he continued to direct their cultivation;
and could, from habit and recollection,
point out to his friends and acquaint-
ance the most interesting plants of his
tulip bed.

But there remained to him delights
still higher than the innocent pleasures
of music and the garden, and even than
intellectual acquisitions. He found
them in the estimation of his friends,
the recollections of a well-spent life,
and the consolations of religion. He
was a regular attendant on the services
and ordinances of the Church of Eng-
land. The kindness of a master is
testified by the fact, that the period of
the services of the three domestics who
were with him at his death averaged
forty years. · Gentleman's Magazine.

BRIDGEWATER, the Right Hon.
and Rev. Francis Henry Egerton,
eighth Earl of, ninth Viscount Brackley
and Baron Ellesmere, and a Prince of
the Holy Roman Empire; Senior Pre-
bendary of Durham, Rector of Whit-
church and Middle in Shropshire, M. A.
F. R.S. and F. S. A.; April 1829; at
Paris; aged 72.

The title of Bridgewater, which with
this nobleman has become extinct, was
first suggested as the reward of a meri-
torious and virtuous Chancellor, one of
the best in the whole list of those who

VOL. XIV.

*

have kept the Great Seal of this country.
From some difficulty in selecting the
title, however, the patent for the Earldom
was not completed before the Chancel-
lor's death, when it was bestowed upon
his son.

In a letter of the period, the
circumstances are thus related: -"The
15th of this present March [1616-17],
the late Lord Chancellor left this world,
being visited in articulo mortis, or not
fuli half an hour before, by the new
Lord Keeper [Bacon], with a message
from His Majesty that he meant pre-
sently to bestow upon him the title of
Earl of Bridgewater, to make him Pre-
sident of the Council, and give him a
pension of 3000l. a year during his life.
But he was so far past, that no words or
worldly comfort could work with him,
but only thanking His Majesty for his
gracious favour, said 'these things were
all to him but vanities.' But his son,
though he lay then (and so doth still) as
it were bound hand and foot with the
gout, did not neglect this fair offer of
the Earldom, but hath solicited it ever
since, with hopeful success at first, the
King having given order for the warrant;
yet it sticks I know not where, unless it
be that he must give down more milk;
though, if all be true that is said, 20,0002.
was a fair sop before. His father left a
great estate both in wealth and lands;
15,000l. a year is the least that is talked
of, and some speak of much more." +
Scroop, the fourth Earl of Bridgewater,
was in 1720 advanced to the titles of
Marquess of Brackley and Duke of
Bridgewater, which became extinct with
his younger son Francis, the third who
enjoyed them, in 1803.
That Duke's
vast property in internal navigation was
bequeathed to his nephew the present
Marquess of Stafford, with remainder to
the Marquess's second son, Lord Francis
Leveson Gower, the present Chief Se-
cretary for Ireland. To his cousin, Lieut.-
Gen. Egerton, who succeeded him as
seventh Earl of Bridgewater (and was
brother to the nobleman now deceased),
the Duke bequeathed Ashridge in Hert-
fordshire, with the other family estates
in Buckinghamshire, Shropshire, and
Yorkshire, to the amount of 30,000%.

* In June 1616, it was uncertain
whether the Lord Chancellor was to be
Earl of Cambridge, Flint, or Bucking-
ham. Nichols's Progresses of King
James the First, vol. iv. p. 1095.
+ Ibid. vol. iii. p. 26€.

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per ann.; and the greater part of his property in the funds, which amounted to about 600,000l. The seventh Earl survived until 1823, but left no children. His Countess, who was the only daughter and heiress of Samuel Haynes, Esq. is still living. The title then devolved on the subject of this memoir.

His Lordship was born Nov. 11. 1756, the younger of two sons of the Right Rev. John Lord Bishop of Durham, by Lady Anna Sophia Grey, daughter and coheiress of Henry Duke of Kent. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards at All Souls College, Oxford, where he attained the degree of M. A. in 1780. In the same year his father appointed him a Prebendary of Durham. In 1781 the Duke of Bridgewater presented him to the Rectory of Middle in Shropshire; as he did in 1797 to that of Whitchurch in the same county; and he retained them both until his death. Mr. Egerton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1784, and of the Society of Antiquaries in 1791. In 1796 he published in 4to. an edition of the Hyppolytus of Euridipes, "cum scholiis, versione Latina, variis lectionibus, Valckenari notis integris, et selectis aliorum vv dd. quibus suas adjecit Fran. Hen. Egerton." By this learned work, which is described in the preface as partly the result of what he had gathered at Eton from his masters Drs. Foster and Davies, Mr. Egerton acquired considerable credit.

Another classical production of the same editor was "A Fragment of an Ode of Sappho, from Longinus; also an Ode of Sappho, from Dionysius Halicarn." in 8vo.

In 1793 Mr. Egerton communicated to the fifth volume of the "Biographia Britannica," a Life of Lord Chancellor Egerton, extending to 19 pages. This memoir, greatly enlarged to 80 folio pages, still after the form of arrangement adopted in the "Biographia Britannica," was reprinted for his private use in 1798, the number being 250 copies. It was then entitled "A Compilation of various authentic Evidences and historical Authorities, tending to illustrate the Life and Character of Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere, Viscount Brackley, Lord High Chancellor of England, &c. &c. &c. and the Nature of the Times in which he was Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor." This long article he in 1802 persuaded the booksellers to reprint for the sixth volume of the "Biographia Britannica," then in progress;

together with a memoir of his father, the Bishop of Durham, which had previously been prefixed to the third volume of Hutchinson's "History of Durham.” That portion of the "Biographia Britannica," when still unfinished, was consumed at the fire of Mr. Nichols's printing-office in 1808. There is, however, an edition of it in folio, "printed for private distribution," which bears the date 1807, and has the addition of a Memoir of Francis third Duke of Bridgewater.

This

In the XVIth volume of the Transactions of the Society of Arts, is a description, from Mr. Egerton's pen, of the underground Inclined Plane, executed by the late Duke of Bridgewater, at Walk den-Moor, in Lancashire. was afterwards printed in French, Paris, 8vo. 1803; and another of Mr. Egerton's productions is entitled "A Letter to the Parisians, and the French Nation, upon Inland Navigation, consisting of a Defence of the public Character of his Grace Francis Egerton, late Duke of Bridgewater, including Notices and Anecdotes concerning Mr. James Brindley." This was printed in two parts, 8vo. 1819 and 1820.

In January 1808, Mr. Egerton, and his sister Lady Amelia, the wife of Sir Abraham Hume, were raised, by His Majesty's sign manual, to the rank of Earl's children; and on the 21st of October, 1823, he succeeded his brother in his titles.

His Lordship had for many years resided entirely at Paris. He printed there in 1814, "Lettre inédité de la Seigneurie de Florence au Pape Sixte IV. 21 Juillet, 1478." 4to. He also continued to amuse himself with domestic biography; and in 1826 he printed for private circulation some " Family Anecdotes," from which extracts will be found in the Literary Gazette for 1827, pp.

121. 153.

The Earl's singularities were a general topic for conversation at Paris. He had, at the time of his death, his house nearly filled with dogs and cats, which he had picked up at different places. Of the fifteen dogs which he kept, two were admitted to the honours of his table, and the whole of them were frequently dressed up in clothes like human beings. Sometimes a fine carriage, containing half a dozen of them, was seen in the streets drawn by four horses, and accompanied by two footmen. In his last days, when so debilitated as to be

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