Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/36

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had been elected F.S.A. in 1803, and was a frequent contributor to ‘Archæologia’ (see vols. xv. xvi. xix. xxi. xxiv. and xxvii.). The last two of these communications treated of male and female headdress in England from 1500 to 1700. Another curious paper, ‘on the beard and the mustachio, chiefly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century,’ which was read before the Society of Antiquaries, but not published, was printed at Repton's expense in 1839 (London, 8vo). In 1820 he displayed his antiquarian learning in the production of an ‘olden-style romance,’ entitled ‘A trewe Hystorie of the Prince Radapanthus,’ of which he printed eighty copies in a very small size. His name is not on the title-page, but may be spelt out from the initial letters on turning over the pages. Many articles by him appeared in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ from 1795 and in the British Archæological Association's ‘Journal’ (cf. xvii. 175–80). To John Britton's ‘Cathedral Antiquities of Great Britain’ (vol. ii.) he contributed, in 1816, a series of drawings of Norwich Cathedral. Repton, who was deaf from infancy, died unmarried at Springfield on 26 Nov. 1860 (notes supplied by G. C. Boase, esq.; Gent. Mag. 1861, i. 107–10; Roget, Old Water-colour Soc. 1891, i. 372).

The fourth son, George Stanley Repton (d. 1858), architect, was a pupil of Augustus Charles Pugin [q. v.], and entered the office of John Nash [q. v.], becoming one of his chief assistants. In conjunction with Nash, he altered and enlarged the opera house in the Haymarket, London, and designed the church of St. Philip, Regent Street. He also assisted his father and brother in the plans for the Pavilion at Brighton, and designed the library at Lord Darnley's seat of Cobham in Kent. Lady Elizabeth Scott, the eldest daughter of Lord Eldon, having made some unsuccessful attempts to obtain her father's consent to her marriage with Repton, escaped from the house on the morning of 27 Nov. 1817, and she and Repton were married the same day by license at St. George's, Hanover Square. Ferrey says that they had been ‘privately married in March 1817’ (Recollections of Pugin, pp. 4–5). The lady's father was exceedingly angry, but in 1820 a reconciliation took place, and under Lord Eldon's will her children shared in the family property equally with the issue of his other daughter. Repton did not long continue to follow his profession. He died on 29 June 1858. His widow died at Norfolk Street, Park Lane, London, on 16 April 1862, aged 78. Their only son, George William John Repton, sat in parliament for many years, first as member for St. Albans, and then for Warwick (Dict. of Architecture, vii. 22; Cunningham, London, ii. 199, iii. 80, 159; Roget, Old Water-Colour Soc. i. 372; Gent. Mag. 1817 ii. 554, 1862 i. 657; Twiss, Eldon, ii. 298; Surtees, Lords Stowell and Eldon, pp. 154–6).

[Gent. Mag. 1818, i. 372–3, 648, ii. 102; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Literature; Ann. Biogr. for 1819, pp. 285–310; Dict. of Architecture, vii. 29; Cunningham's London (ed. Wheatley), ii. 329, iii. 191.]

W. P. C.

RERESBY, Sir JOHN (1634–1689), author of ‘Travels and Memoirs,’ born at Thribergh in the West Riding of Yorkshire on 14 April 1634, was the eldest son of Sir John Reresby, bart., of Thribergh Hall, who died at the age of thirty-five in April 1646, ‘having been taken prisoner two years before by the parliament's party, and confined to his own house’ (Memoirs, 1875, p. 21). His mother, Frances, daughter of Edmund Yarburgh of Snaith Hall, Yorkshire, subsequently married James Moyser of Beverley, Yorkshire, where she died in September 1668. Reresby says that in 1652 he ‘was admitted of Trinity College in Cambridge’ (ib. p. 23); but, as the college refused to allow him the rank and privilege of a nobleman, he did not go into residence, and no entry of his admission is to be found in the college books. According to his own account, he was shortly afterwards admitted to Gray's Inn (ib. p. 23), but his name does not appear in Foster's ‘Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1521–1889’. In April 1654 Reresby went abroad, where he remained rather more than four years. The account which he wrote of his travels during this period was published in the edition of his ‘Memoirs’ which appeared in 1813. After stopping in England for some eighteen months he returned to Paris in November 1659, visited Henrietta Maria's court at the Palais Royal, and became a great favourite with the young princess, Henrietta, duchess of Orleans [q. v.] Soon after the Restoration, Reresby returned to England with a letter of recommendation from the queen-mother, and was presented to the king at Whitehall. He served the office of high sheriff of Yorkshire in 1667. At a by-election in November 1673 he was returned to the Long parliament for Aldborough in Yorkshire, together with one Robert Benson. The question of the double return having been at length decided in his favour, Reresby took his seat in the House of Commons on 14 April 1675 (Journals of the House of Commons, ix. 323; Memoirs, pp. 94–5). He spoke in favour of giving an aid to the king in Fe-