vigorous attack upon the intended prohibition of the free importation of foreign corn. The course he took on this occasion is commemorated by a medal struck in his honour on the obverse side of which is the bust of the lord mayor, and on the reverse a representation of a wheatsheaf, with the legend, 'Free Importation, Peace and Plenty.' During his mayoralty the marble statue of George III by Chantrey, the inscription on which was written by Birch, was placed in the council chamber of Guildhall. Almost his last act as lord mayor was to lay the foundation-stone of the London Institution in Finsbury Circus (then called the Amphitheatre, Moorfields) on 4 Nov. 1815. In 1836 Birch, who had for many years carried on his father's old business in Cornhill, disposed of it to Messrs. Ring & Brymer, the present proprietors. He retired from the court. of aldermen in 1810, and died at his house, 107 Guildford Street, London, on 10 Dec. 1841, aged 84. Birch was a man of considerable literary attainments, and wrote a number of poems and musical dramas, of which the ‘Adopted Child’ was by far the most successful. His plays were frequently produced at Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Haymarket theatres. His varied activity was the subject of a clever skit, in which a French visitor to London meeting with 'Birch the pastrycook' in such different capacities as Guildhall-orator, militia-colonel, poet, &c., returned to France, believing him to be the emperor of London! His portrait, presented by his granddaughter in 1877, hangs in the Guildhall library.
He published the following works:
- ‘The Abbey of Ambresbury,’ in two parts, 1788-9), 4to (a poem).
- 'Consilia, or Thoughts on several Subjects,' 1785, 12mo.
- 'The Adopted Child,' 1795, 8vo (a musical drama, first produced at Drury Lane 1 May 1795; music by Thomas Attwood).
- 'The Smugglers,' 1796, 8vo (a musical drama, first produced at Drury Lane 13 April 1796; music by Thomas Attwood [q. v.]).
- ‘Speech in the Common Council against the Roman Catholic Petition,’ 8vo, 1805.
- ‘Speech in the Common Council on the Admission of Papists to hold Commissions in the Army.' March 1807.
He also wrote the following dramatic pieces, which were never published:
- ‘The Manners,’ 1793 (a musical entertainment, first produced at the opera house in the Haymarket 10 May 1793).
- ‘The Packet Boat, or a Peep behind the Veil,’ 1794 (a masque, first produced at Covent Garden 13 May 1794; music by Thomas Attwood).
- ‘Fast Asleep, 1797 (a musical entertainment, produced at Drury Lane 28 Oct. 1795, and never acted again).
- ‘Albert and Adelaide, or the Victim of Romance,' 1798 (a romance first produced at Covent Garden 11 Dec. 1798).
[Baker's Biographia Dramatica, 1812, i. 41-3; Chambers's Book of Days, 1869. p. 64; Thornbury's Old and New London, 1st ed. i. 412-3, ii. 172; Era, 15 Jan. 1881, p. 7; Annual Register, 1841, appendix, p. 238.]
BIRCH, THOMAS, D.D. (1705–1766), historian and biographer, was born of quaker patients in St. Georges Court, Clerkenwell, on 23 Nov. 1705. His father, Joseph Birch, was a coffee-mill maker. The son received the rudiments of a good education, and when he left school spent his spare time in study. He was baptised, 15 Dec. 1730, at St. James's, Clerkenwell, having been bred as a quaker (Register of St. James, Harleian Soc. ii. 191). He is believed to have assisted a clergyman called Cox in his parochial duty, and he is known to have married, in the summer of 1728, Cox's daughter Hannah. His wife’s strength had been undermined by a decline, but her death was caused by a puerperal fever between 31 July and 3 Aug. 1729. A copy of verses which the widowed husband wrote on her coffin on the latter day is printed in the ‘Miscellaneous Works of Mrs. Rowe,’ ii. 133-7, and in the 'Biographica Britannica.' Birch was ordained deacon in the church of England on 17 Jan. 1730, and priest on 21 Dec. 1731. Being a diligent student of English history and a firm supporter of the whig doctrines in church and state, he banked in the patronage of the Hardwicke family, and passed from one ecclesiastical preferment to another. The small rectory of Ulting in Essex was conferred upon him 20 May 1732, and the sinecure rectory of Llandewi-Velfrey in Pembroke in May 1743. In January 1744 he was nominated to the rectory of Siddington, near Cirencester, but he probably never took possession of its emoluments, as on 24 Feb. in the same year he was instituted to the rectory of St. Michael, Wood Street, London. Two years later he became the rector of St. Margaret Pattens, London, and on 25 Feb. 1761 he was appointed to the rectory of Depden in Suffolk. The last two livings he retained until his death. Birch never received the benefit of a university education, but in 1753 he was created D.D. of the Marischal College, Aberdeen, and of Lambeth. He was elected F.R.S. 20 Feb. 1735, and F.S.A. 11 Dec. 1735. From 1752 to 1765 he discharged the duties of secretary to the Royal Society. Whilst riding in the Hampstead Road he fell from his horse, it is believed in an apoplectic fit, and died on 9 Jan. 1766. He was buried in the chancel of the church of St. Margaret Pattens.
