great energy and diligence. His chief discoveries were (1) the cretaceous age of the limestones forming part of the axial ridge (Blue Mountains) of the island; in these rocks Barrett found the remarkable shells called hippurites, and among them one form so different from all previously known that Dr. Woodward made it the type of a new genus, which he named ‘Barrettia’ in honour of the discoverer. (2) The ‘orbitoidal limestone,’ which had been previously considered to be of carboniferous age, was shown to form the base of the miocene formation. From these miocene beds Barrett sent home seventy-one species of shells and many corals, which were described by Mr. J. C. Moore and Dr. Duncan. But the pliocene rocks, which are of comparatively recent formation, now strongly attracted the new director's attention, especially with regard to the relationship of the fossils they contain to the animals now living in the surrounding seas. Here Barrett's dredging experience stood him in good service, and he began diligently to study the marine fauna of the coast of Jamaica. In spots where the water was deep he found many small shells which he had previously dredged up, both off the coast of Spain and in the northern seas; hence he was led to enunciate the opinion ‘that nine-tenths of the sea-bed, viz. the whole area beyond the hundred-fathom line, constitutes a single nearly uniform province all over the world.’
In 1862 Barrett was sent to England to act as commissioner for the colony at the International Exhibition. On his return to Jamaica he took with him a Heinke's diving dress, for the express object of investigating in person the corals of the Jamaican reefs. He used the dress successfully in shallow water, and then, eager to begin work, went down in deep water off Port Royal, with no other help than that afforded by a boat's crew of negroes. In half an hour his body floated lifeless to the surface. The exact nature of the mishap which caused his death could not be ascertained. He left one (posthumous) child, Arthur, born January 1863. Barrett has been compared by those who best knew him to Professor Edward Forbes, for his sweetness of disposition, good taste, and clear intelligence. He was not a good public lecturer, nor a very ready writer; but during his short life he really hardly had opportunity to develop his abilities in these respects. Eleven papers or memoirs proceeded from his pen; appearing either in the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ or in the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society.’ One paper, on the genus Synapta, was written in conjunction with Dr. S. P. Woodward, and was published in the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society.’ Of his other writings the most important is his paper on the ‘Cretaceous Rocks of Jamaica,’ ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,’ 1860, xvi. 78.
[Quart. Jour. Geological Society, 1864, vol. xx., President's Address, p. xxxiii; The Geologist, 1863, vi. 60; The Critic, February 1863.]
BARRETT, STEPHEN (1718–1801), a classical teacher who gained some reputation, was born in 1718 at Bent, in the parish of Kildwick in Craven, Yorkshire. He was educated at the grammar school, Skipton, and at University College, Oxford. Having taken the degree of M.A. (1744) and entered the ministry, he became master of the free grammar school at Ashford, Kent, and was made rector of the parishes of Purton and Ickleford, Herts. In 1773 he resigned his mastership on receiving the living of Hothfield, Kent. He continued to hold the living until his death, which occurred at Northiam, Sussex, on 26 Nov. 1801. By his wife Mary, daughter of Edward Jacob, Esq., of Canterbury, he left one daughter.
In 1746 Barrett published a Latin translation, which was admired at the time, of ‘Pope's Pastorals.’ Among his friends in early life were Dr. Johnson, and the founder of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ Edward Cave. To that magazine Barrett was a frequent contributor. Vol. xxiv. contains a letter, signed with his name, on a new method of modelling the tenses of Latin verbs. In 1759 he published ‘Ovid's Epistles translated into English verse, with critical essays and notes; being part of a poetical and oratorical lecture read to the grammar school of Ashford in the county of Kent, and calculated to initiate youth in the first principles of Taste.’ He was also the author of ‘War, an Epic Satire,’ and other trifles.
[Gent. Mag. lxxi. 1152; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ix. 672.]
BARRETT, WILLIAM (1733–1789), surgeon and antiquary, was born early in 1733 at Notton, in Wiltshire. Upon completing his twenty-second year, the stipulated age, he passed his examination as a surgeon on 19 Feb. 1755 (see pp. 77 and 94 of a well-kept manuscript folio volume at the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields, entitled Examination, with Index, from July 1745 to April 1800). William Barrett is stated to have obtained from the College of Surgeons a ‘2nd mate's’ certificate after having given evidence of ‘1st rate’ capacity.
