Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/428

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Battley
422
Batty

Club for his cheerful glee, ‘Come bind my brows.’ In 1776 he published, by subscription, two collections of glees, and about the same time he took considerable interest in the musical and elocutionary entertainments projected by Lee the actor and Baildon the musician, which took place in the great room of the Crown and Anchor tavern. Several interesting choruses were composed by Battishill for these occasions. At this time he led a very domestic life, his cultivated tastes and his love of literature providing him with plenty of occupation. After the death of his wife, in 1777, he sought distraction in dissipation, thereby injuring his health and diminishing his fortune. After a long illness he died at Islington on 10 Dec. 1801, and was buried, in accordance with his dying request, in St. Paul's, near the remains of Dr. Boyce. The funeral service was composed by Dr. Busby, and Battishill's own beautiful six-part anthem, ‘Call to Remembrance,’ was sung, and accompanied by Attwood. His works are vigorous and original, having a certain analogy to those of Purcell. His part-writing is exceedingly ingenious and interesting. His playing of the organ and harpsichord was dignified and tasteful, though dexterity and rapidity of execution were disregarded by him. Busby relates that he used frequently to say ‘I am no finger merchant.’ His playing of Handel was particularly excellent.

Besides the collection of his works published during his lifetime, several anthems, chants, and psalm-tunes were published after his death by Page in 1804. In the British Museum there is a copy of ‘Two Anthems, as they are sung in St. Paul's Cathedral.’ These are ‘Call to Remembrance’ (six parts) and ‘How long wilt Thou forget me?’ (five parts). Copies of his collection of songs and glees are in the library of the Royal College of Music.

[Busby's History of Music, vol. ii.; Concert-room Anecdotes; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians; European Magazine, xl. 479.]

J. A. F. M.

BATTLEY, RICHARD (1770–1856), chemist, was the son of an architect in Wakefield, where he was born about 1770. He was educated at the Wakefield grammar school, and after serving as pupil with a physician at Wakefield was appointed medical attendant in connection with the collieries in the district of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He then went to London to attend the medical schools, and after concluding his studies entered the service of the navy as an assistant surgeon, and was present at several engagements under Sir Sidney Smith. In a few years, however, he returned to London, where he carried on the business of an apothecary, first in St. Paul's Churchyard, and afterwards in Fore Street, Cripplegate. When the London Eye Infirmary was founded, he for a time supplied the medicines free of cost, and also acted as secretary. He introduced many important improvements in pharmaceutical operations, and at his own house in Fore Street, as well as at the Sanderson Institution, provided a museum of materia medica which was open free to the pupils of all the medical schools. He died at Reigate on 4 March 1856.

[Gent. Mag. new ser. xlv. 534–6.]

BATTY, ROBERT (d. 1848), lieutenant-colonel and amateur draughtsman, was the son of Dr. Batty, of Hastings [q. v.] At the age of fifteen he went to Italy, and was able there to cultivate his natural fondness for art. He was educated at Caius College, Cambridge. He entered first for the army, but afterwards returned to Cambridge and took the M.B. degree in 1813. After this, however, he served with the grenadier guards in the campaign in the western Pyrenees, and at Waterloo. He published an account of these exploits in a quarto volume, with plates etched by himself, and called ‘The Campaign of the Left Wing of the Allied Army in the Western Pyrenees and South of France, 1813–14.’ This was followed by ‘A Sketch of the Campaign of 1815.’ He published also several volumes of the scenery of different countries: ‘French Scenery,’ 1822; ‘German Scenery’ and ‘Welsh Scenery,’ 1823; ‘Scenery of the Rhine, Belgium and Holland,’ 1826; ‘Hanoverian, Saxon, and Danish Scenery,’ 1828; ‘Scenery in India,’ and ‘Select Views of the principal Cities of Europe,’ 1830–33. He exhibited at the Royal Academy at different times between 1825 and 1832. He died in London on 20 Nov. 1848. ‘His industry was great, his works carefully and truthfully drawn, his architecture correct in its proportions and outlines’ (Redgrave). His sister is stated to have published a series of views of Italian scenery.

[Ottley's Supplement to Bryan's Dictionary of Painters, 1866; Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School, 1878.]

E. R.

BATTY, ROBERT, M.D. (1763?–1849), was born at Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmoreland. He graduated M.D. at the university of St. Andrews on 30 Aug. 1797, shortly after which he settled in London as obstetric physician. On 30 Sept. 1800 he was admitted by the College of Physicians a licen-