by the strong undercurrent, was never seen again.
On receiving the intelligence of the bishop's death the government of India published the following order in council: ‘The right honourable the governor-general in council has learnt with the deepest sorrow the death, through a calamitous accident, of the Right Reverend George Edward Lynch Cotton, lord bishop of Calcutta. There is scarcely a member of the entire christian community throughout India who will not feel the premature loss of this prelate as a personal affliction. It has rarely been given to any body of christians in any country to witness such depth of learning and variety of accomplishments combined with piety so earnest and energy so untiring. His excellency in council does not hesitate to add the expression of his belief that large numbers, even among those of her majesty's subjects in India who did not share the faith of the Bishop of Calcutta, had learned to appreciate his great knowledge, his sincerity, and his charity, and will join in lamenting his death.’
Cotton married in 1845 his cousin, Sophia Anne, eldest daughter of the late Rev. Henry Tomkinson of Reaseheath in Cheshire. His widow wrote his life. He left one son, now Captain Edward T. D. Cotton, M.P., and one daughter.
[Memoir of George Edward Lynch Cotton, D.D., bishop of Calcutta and metropolitan, with selections from his journals and correspondence, edited by Mrs. Cotton, London, 1871; Ann. Reg. 1886.]
COTTON, HENRY (1789–1879), divine, was a native of Buckinghamshire. He was born in 1789, and, having been for four years at Westminster School (into which he was admitted in 1803), entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he obtained in 1810 a first class in classics, and became Greek reader. There he graduated B.A. in the following year, and M.A. in 1813. While at Christ Church he attracted the notice of the dean, Cyril Jackson, to whose memory his work on the various editions of the Bible is dedicated, and it was probably through the dean's influence that he was appointed in 1814 sub-librarian of the Bodleian. This post he resigned in 1822, having two years before received from his university the degree of D.C.L., and having been admitted into holy orders. He was likewise a student of Christ Church. In 1823 he removed to Ireland as domestic chaplain to the learned Dr. Laurence, shortly before promoted to the archbishopric of Cashel, who was also an Oxford man, and father-in-law of Cotton. In June 1824 the archdeaconry of Cashel was conferred upon him; in 1828 the union of Thurles; he was appointed likewise in 1832 to the treasurership of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin; and in 1834, the temporalities of the deanery of Lismore having been transferred to the ecclesiastical commissioners for Ireland, under the provisions of the act 4 and 5 William IV, c. 90, the cathedral chapter elected him to the honourable, but unremunerative, dignity of dean of Lismore. Until failing eyesight induced him to retire from the active duties of the ministry he laboured faithfully, taking a deep interest in his various engagements. In 1872 he became almost totally blind, and then felt bound to resign all his other ecclesiastical preferments, having held an exemplary position as a scholar, an author, and a minister of religion. He died at his residence in Lismore 3 Dec. 1879, and was buried in the graveyard of Lismore Cathedral.
Cotton's works (not including occasional sermons and articles in periodicals) are:
- ‘Dr. Wotton's Thoughts on a proper Method of studying Divinity, with Notes,’ &c., Oxford, 1818.
- ‘A List of Editions of the Bible in English from 1505 to 1820, with Specimens of Translations,’ &c., Oxford, 1821 (second edition, corrected and enlarged, 1852).
- ‘A Typographical Gazetteer attempted,’ Oxford, 1824 (second edition, corrected and enlarged, 1831; and a second series, especially rich in details of the foundation of newspapers in the United States, and of missionary publications in our colonies, Oxford, 1866).
- ‘Memoir of a French New Testament, with Bishop Kidder's Reflections on the same,’ London, 1827 (second edition 1863).
- ‘A Short Explanation of Obsolete Words in our Version of the Bible,’ Oxford, 1832.
- ‘Five Books of Maccabees in English, with Notes and Illustrations,’ Oxford, 1832.
- ‘Cui Bono? A Letter to the Right Hon. E. G. Stanley,’ Dublin, 1833.
- ‘Fiat Justitia, a Letter to Sir H. Hardinge on the Present State of the Church in Ireland,’ Dublin, 1835.
- ‘Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ,’ 6 vols., Dublin, 1845–78.
- ‘Rhemes and Doway: an Attempt to show what has been done by Roman Catholics for the diffusion of the Holy Scriptures in English,’ Oxford, 1855.
- ‘The Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, with short Notes for the use of schools and young persons,’ Oxford, 1857.
On the death of Archbishop Laurence in 1838 Cotton superintended the publication of Laurence's reproduction of the first ‘Visitation of the Saxon Reformed Church in 1527 and 1528,’ and he likewise reissued the privately printed poetical pieces of Archbishop Laurence and his brother, French Laurence, the friend of
