DELAUNE, WILLIAM, D.D. (1659–1728), president of St. John's College, Oxford, son of Benjamin Delaune of London, by Margaret, daughter of George Coney, born 14 April 1659, entered Merchant Taylors' School 11 Sept. 1672, proceeded to St. John's College, Oxford, in 1675, graduated B.A. in 1679, M.A.. in 1683, B.D. in 1688. Having taken holy orders, he became chaplain to Mews, bishop of Winchester, who presented him to the living of Chilbolton, Hampshire. He subsequently held that of South Wamborough, Wiltshire. In 1697 he proceeded D.D., and on 14 March 1697-8 was elected president of St. John's. Installed canon of Winchester in 1701, he was appointed vice-chancellor of the university in October of the following year. His tenure of this office, which lasted until October 1706, was more profitable to himself than to the university. Hearne tells that he earned the sobriquet of Gallio by his systematic neglect of his duties, and roundly charges him with embezzling the contents of the university chest. Whether his conduct amounted to embezzlement in the strict sense of the term may perhaps be doubted; but it seems clear that he made advances to himself out of the university exchequer to the extent of 3,000l., which he did not repay. His successor, Dr. Lancaster, made some attempts to recover the money, apparently without much success, and subsequent vice-chancellors were less exacting. He paid a composition of 300l. in full discharge of the debt in 1719. The only pursuit into which he really threw the full energies of his intellect was gambling, which he cultivated with more assiduity than success. He is said to have dissipated in that way a considerable fortune, besides the money which he borrowed from the university chest. This was regarded as a scandal. Hearne mentions that 'a certain terrae filius in the public act in 1703 began with some hesitation to speak something of the vice-chancellor, broke out with a resolution to do it with these words, "Jacta est alea.'" The same story is told in 'Terrae Filius,' the author of which, Nicholas Amherst, Delaune is said to have expelled from St. John's. Delaune was elected Margaret Lecturer in Divinity on 18 Feb. 1714-15, and installed prebendary of Worcester. He was also one of Queen Anne's chaplains, and acquired some reputation as a preacher (Luttrell, Relation of State Affairs, v. 256). He died on 23 May 1728, and was buried without the usual eulogistic epitaph in St. John's College Chapel. A humorous epitaph will be found in Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes,' i. 36 (see also viii. 355). Delaune published in 1728 'Twelve Sermons upon several Subjects and Occasions.' Some of the sermons had previously been published separately. The matter of the book is coarse and conventional, and the style clumsy. It is fulsomely dedicated to Lord Abingdon.
[Merchant Taylors' Reg. 277; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl.Angl.; Grad. Oxon.; Hearne's Remarks and Collections (Oxford Hist. Soc.), 53, 193, 293, 315; Terrae Filius, Nos, i., iv., and x.; Ayliffe's Ancient and Present State of Univ. Oxford,i. 216; Wood's Athenae Oxon (Bliss), lxxv.; Wood's Hist. and Ant. Oxford (Crutch), ii. pt. ii. 833, iv. 546, 562; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. xii. 53; Pepys's Corr. 5 Dec. 1702. Information from the Rev. R. Ewing, M.A., Fellow of St. John's Coll. Oxford.]
DELAVAL, EDWARD HUSSEY (1729–1814), chemist, was a member of an ancient Northumbrian family, represented by two branches at Ford and at Seaton in that county. He was born in 1729, being a younger brother of Lord Delaval, a title now extinct. On Lord Delaval's death in 1808 he succeeded to his entailed estates at Seaton-Delaval and Doddington. Edward took the degree of M.A. and became a fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. His classical attainments were considerable, and he was conversant with many modern languages. His favourite pursuit, however, was the study of chemistry and experimental philosophy. Having been elected a fellow of the Royal Society (December 1759), he contributed to their ‘Transactions’ in 1764 an account of the effects of lightning in St. Bride's Church, Fleet Street, with explanatory plates. Five years later he was appointed with Benjamin Franklin and others to report to the Royal Society on the means of securing St. Paul's Cathedral against danger from lightning. On 22 March 1772 St. Paul's was struck with lightning, and Delaval, after examination, gave an account of the effects produced. In a controversy which arose as to the use of pointed or blunt lightning-conductors Delaval (February 1773) gave excellent reasons for using blunt conductors in buildings of ordinary size. Following up Sir Isaac Newton's treatise on optics Delaval experimentalised on the specific gravities of the several metals and their colours when united to glass, and wrote a paper on the subject (Phil. Trans. lv.), for which he received the Royal Society's gold medal. The subject was further developed in a quarto volume on ‘The Cause of Changes in Opaque and Coloured Bodies,’ which he published in 1777. Seven years later he obtained the gold medal of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society for a paper on ‘The Cause of the permanent Colours of Opaque Bodies’ (Memoirs, ii.) These various scientific writings attracted the notice of many European inquirers, and were
