Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 01.djvu/427

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Angas
413
Angel

ANGAS, CALEB (1782–1860), a celebrated Yorkshire agriculturist, was born in 1782, and died at Driffield, 6 Feb. 1860. His letters to the 'Sun' newspaper (the chief organ of the free-trade movement) attracted much attention at the time, and were of great service to the cause. Mr. Cobden frequently referred to them in the course of his crusade against protection. He was formerly of Brancepeth, but at the age of thirty-two he removed to Neswick farm, under the late John Grimston, Esq. In the East Riding he was considered to be the best authority on farming. He was not only a clever writer and a good mathematician, but he possessed considerable mechanical information.

[Gent. Mag. 3rd series, viii. 524]

J. W.-G.


ANGAS, GEORGE FIFE (1789–1879), one of the founders of the colony of South Australia, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 1 May 1789, and died at Lindsey House, Adelaide, South Australia, on 15 May 1879. He was the senior partner of a large firm of shipowners and merchants in London until 1833, when he retired to Devonshire. He was appointed one of the first commissioners when the act passed in 1834 for the formation of the colony of South Australia, and when the government insisted on a certain amount of land being sold before the foundation, he guaranteed 35,000l., and was largely concerned in forming the South Australian Company for purchase of land and settlement of the population. Afterwards, suffering heavy losses through his colonial agents, he was compelled to send out his son, J. H. Angas, to look after his property in 1843; and soon after he himself emigrated to Adelaide, arriving there on 15 Jan. 1851, with his wife and youngest son, his two eldest sons and two daughters having preceded him, and another daughter remaining in England. He was also the founder of the National and Provincial Bank of England, the Bank of South Australia, and the Union Bank of Australia, and was chairman of the London boards of direction of all these companies up to the time of leaving his native country.

He was noted for his liberal support of all religious, educational, and charitable objects, and gave 5,000l. to the Bushman's Club, founded by his son. He filled various offices in the colony, was a member of the educational board and a representative of the district of Barossa in the legislative council. Harcus in his work on South Australia says of him: ‘Mr. Angas is one of the best and most useful colonists the province has ever had. He devoted time and labour to the colony when it needed the best assistance of its best friends. More than this, he risked to a large extent his considerable private means to give this province a start on a safe footing.’ To his efforts was due the settlement of a German colony which became very prosperous.

Angas resided at Lindsey House, one of the most beautiful spots in the colony. His son, Mr. J. H. Angas, who at the age of twenty helped to retrieve his father's fortunes, now lives there.

[Heaton's Australian Dict. of Dates, 1879; Harcus's South Australia, 1876; Times, 24 May 1879.]

J. W.-G.

ANGAS, WILLIAM HENRY (1781–1832), sailor missionary, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne 6 Oct. 1781; went to sea and was captured by a French privateer, and imprisoned for a year and a half. He afterwards commanded ships of his father's, but became a baptist minister in 1817 after a year's study at Edinburgh. In 1822 he was appointed missionary to seafaring men by the ‘British and Foreign Seamen's Friend Society and Bethel Union.’ He travelled to various ports and foreign countries for religious purposes, and was serving a chapel at South Shields, when he died of cholera 9 Sept. 1832.

[Life, by Rev. F. A. Cox, D.D., 1834.]


ANGEL, JOHN (fl. 1555), chaplain to King Philip and Queen Mary, is said to have been a ‘person of singular zeal and learning.’ He published a work on the Real Presence under the title of ‘The Agreement of the Holy Fathers,’ 1555, 12mo.

[Dodd's Church History (1737), i. 509.]

T. C.


ANGEL, or ANGELL, JOHN (d. 1655), was ‘a Gloucestershire man,’ born towards the end of the sixteenth century. He was admitted of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1610. He proceeded to his degrees of B.A. and M.A. He was ordained in holy orders; at a bound became a frequent and popular preacher, and many laudatory puns were made on his name. He does not appear to have been presented to any living, but to have gone about as an evangelist. In 1629, or earlier, one Higginson having declined an appointment as town-preacher at Leicester because of his growing nonconformity, Angel, who then conformed to the establishment, was put in his stead by ‘the mayor of Alderney,’ and he is found in 1630 conducting that puritan institution, the lecture, which high churchmen disliked, but which golden-mouthed Jeremy Taylor vindicated in his great book of the ‘Liberty of Prophesying.’ In 1634 he was suspended by the dean of Arches for preaching without license; for