Fell founded the Town Bank grammar school at Ulverston, and left a number of legacies to the poor.
[Webb's Fells of Swarthmore; Sewel's Hist. of the Rise, &c., of the Friends, i. 160, ii. 360; Margaret Fell's Brief Collection, &c., 1710; Baines's Lancashire, vol. ii. 2nd ed.; Barber's Swarthmore Hall and its Associations; Swarthmore MSS.; Calendar of State Papers, Dom. 1649 p. 297, 1653 p. 291, 1654–5 pp. 53, 168; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. iii. 142, iv. 187, &c., vi. 223.]
FELL, WILLIAM (1758?–1848), author, born probably near Brampton, Cumberland, about 1758, was a schoolmaster successively at Manchester, Wilmslow, and Lancaster, and after his retirement lived at Clifton, near Lowther, Westmoreland. He died in March 1848 at Shap, in the same county, leaving his property, an ample competency, to the children of his elder brother, John Fell of Swindale Head, thereby disinheriting his only surviving son, Henry, who lived in Denmark.
He was an industrious writer for the press and published the following separate works: 1. ‘Hints on the Instruction of Youth’ (anonymous), Manchester, 1798. 2. ‘Hints on the Causes of the High Prices of Provisions,’ Penrith, 1800. 3. ‘A System of Political Economy,’ Salford, 1808. 4. ‘Remarks on Mr. Lancaster's System of Education, in which his erroneous statements and the defects in his mode of tuition are detected and explained,’ Warrington, 1811. 5. ‘A Sketch of the Principal Events in English History,’ Warrington, 1811; 2nd edition 1813.
[Communications from Mr. John Yarker of Manchester, who possesses several unpublished manuscripts by Fell.]
FELLOWES, JAMES (fl. 1710–1730), portrait-painter, is known for portraits of eminent clergymen of his time. In the print room at the British Museum there are portraits by him of Thomas Wilson, bishop of Sodor and Man (engraved by Vertue in 1726), Laurence Howell, the nonjuror, and Humphrey Gower, master of St. John's College, Cambridge (engraved by Vertue in 1719). Fellowes obtained notoriety as being the painter of the famous picture of the ‘Last Supper’ which was placed over the communion-table in the church of St. Mary, Whitechapel, by the Jacobite rector, Dr. Richard Welton. In this Dr. White Kennett [q. v.], dean of Peterborough, was portrayed as Judas Iscariot, no pains being lost to make the portrait unmistakable. This caused considerable offence, and the figure was altered by order of the Bishop of London, though the picture was allowed to remain.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Noble's Continuation of Granger's Biog. Hist. iii. 88; Kippis's Biog. Brit. (sub loc. ‘Kennett’).]
FELLOWES, Sir JAMES, M.D. (1771–1857), physician, born in Edinburgh in 1771, was the third son of Dr. William Fellowes, physician extraordinary to the Prince of Wales and brother of Sir Thomas Fellowes [q. v.] He was educated at Rugby, and at Peterhouse, Cambridge. On obtaining a Tancred scholarship he migrated to Gonville and Caius College, where he became a Perse fellow, and graduated M.B. in 1797 and M.D. 1803. He was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians 30 Sept. 1805. He served in the medical service of the army before taking his degree, and afterwards became physician to the forces, and went with Admiral Christian's fleet to San Domingo. In 1804 he was sent to investigate and treat the pestilential fever which raged there. He returned to England in April 1806, and in 1810 was knighted by George III. Soon after he served at Cadiz as chief of the medical department of the army, and in 1815 retired from his majesty's service. In the same year he published ‘Reports of the Pestilential Disorder of Andalusia, which appeared at Cadiz in the years 1800, 1804, 1810, and 1813.’ The reports, though somewhat wanting in completeness, give an interesting account of these violent epidemics as observed at Cadiz, and also of the pestilential fever at Malaga in 1803–4, which was witnessed and described by Waterton the naturalist, with further account of the disease as seen at Gibraltar, and of the Walcheren fever [see Davis, Joseph Barnard]. The Spanish pestilence seems to have been a malignant form of typhus, with interspersed cases of relapsing fever, a combination also observed in London and in Ireland. The fever was highly contagious and the book shows that the author was not deterred from thoroughly investigating the subject by any fears for his own safety, and that he had sound views on the ventilation of barracks and sickrooms. The pathological part of the reports is defective. Fellowes long lived on his pension, and died at Havant 30 Dec. 1857.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 24; Luard's Graduati Cantabrigienses; Works.]
FELLOWES, ROBERT, LL.D. (1771–1847), philanthropist, was born in 1771. His father was the eldest son of William Fellowes of Shottesham Hall, Norfolk. Fellowes was educated for the church at St. Mary Hall, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 30 June 1796, and M.A. on 28 January 1801.
