he accepted on 8 May 1691. In this charge he remained till death, having been ‘married’ to his flock by Matthew Mead [q. v.], as Calamy puts it. Twice he removed the congregation to larger meeting-houses, viz. at Jewin Street (1692) and Old Jewry (1701), having successively as assistants Timothy Rogers (1658–1728) [q. v.] and Joseph Bennet.
Shower was a member of a club of ministers which, for some years from 1692, held weekly meetings at the house of Dr. Upton in Warwick Lane, Calamy being the leading spirit. He succeeded (1697) Samuel Annesley [q. v.] as one of the Tuesday lecturers at Salters' Hall. He was an emotional preacher, and very apt on special occasions. A fever, in May 1706, left his health permanently impaired. John Fox (1693–1763) [q. v.], who visited him in 1712, was impressed by his ‘state and pride.’ On 14 Sept. 1713 he had a paralytic stroke at Epping. He was able to preach again, but retired from active duty on 27 March 1715. He died at Stoke Newington on 28 June 1715, and was buried at Highgate. His funeral sermon was preached on 10 July by William Tong [q. v.] His portrait is in Dr. Williams's library, and has been six times engraved. He married, first, on 24 Sept. 1687, at Utrecht, Elizabeth Falkener (d. 1691), niece of Thomas Papillon [q. v.] ; secondly, on 29 Dec. 1692, Constance White (d. 18 July 1701), by whom three children survived him.
He published twenty-one single sermons, including funeral sermons for Anne Barnardiston (1682), Richard Walter (1692), Queen Mary (1695), Nathaniel Oldfield (1696), Jane Papillon (1698), Nathaniel Taylor (1702), Nehemiah Grew [q. v.], and an ‘exhortation’ at the ordination of Thomas Bradbury [q. v.]; also 1. ‘Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica,’ 1693, 12mo. 2. ‘The Day of Grace … Four Sermons,’ 1694, 12mo. 3. ‘Family Religion, in Three Letters,’ 1694, 12mo. 4. ‘Some Account of the … Life … of Mr. Henry Gearing,’ 1694, 12mo. 5. ‘The Mourner's Companion,’ 1699, 12mo (2 parts). 6. ‘God's Thoughts and Ways,’ 1699, 8vo. 7. ‘Heaven and Hell,’ 1700, 8vo. 8. ‘Sacramental Discourses,’ 1702, 8vo (2 parts). 9. ‘Serious Reflections on Time and Eternity,’ 5th ed. 1707, 12mo.
{Life and Funeral Sermon by Tong, 1716; Middleton's Biographia Evangelica, 1786, iv. 214 sq.; Protestant Dissenter's Magazine, 1797 pp. 41 sq., 1799 pp. 212 sq., 254 sq., 429 sq.; Noble's Continuation of Granger, 1806, i. 129; Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1808 ii. 308 sq., 1810 iii. 39 sq., 1814 iv. 66; Monthly Repository, 1821, pp. 133, 222; Calamy's Own Life, 1830, i. 139, 324, ii. 37, 340; Pike's Ancient Meeting Houses, 1870, pp. 102 sq.; Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Toland, 1726, ii. 356; Swift's Works (Scott), xi. 201 sq.; Notes and Queries, 9th ser. i. 163.]
SHRAPNEL, HENRY (1761–1842), inventor of the Shrapnel shell, youngest son of a family of nine children of Zachariah Shrapnel, esq. (b. 22 Dec. 1724, d. 5 May 1796) of Midnay Manor House, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, and of his wife, Lydia (Needham), was born on 3 June 1761. His brothers dying without issue, he became the head of the family. He received a commission as second lieutenant in the royal artillery on 9 July 1779. He went to Newfoundland in 1780, and was promoted first lieutenant on 3 Dec. 1781. He returned to England in 1784, when he began, at his own expense, to make experiments and to investigate the problems connected with hollow spherical projectiles filled with bullets and bursting charges, and with their discharge from the heavy and light ordnance of the time—investigations which ultimately led to his great invention of the shell called after his name. In 1787 he went to Gibraltar, and remained there until 1791, when he was sent to the West Indies, and was stationed successively at Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada, Dominica, Antigua, and St. Kitts.
Shrapnel was promoted after his return to England to be captain-lieutenant on 15 Aug. 1793. He served in the army of the Duke of York in Flanders, and was wounded at the siege of Dunkirk in September. It is recorded that at the retreat from Dunkirk Shrapnel made two suggestions which were successfully adopted: one was to lock the wheels of all the gun-carriages and skid them over the sands; the other was making decoy fires at night away from the British position, whereby the enemy expended his ammunition on them uselessly while the British were departing. He was promoted to be captain on 3 Oct. 1795, brevet-major on 29 April 1802, major in the royal artillery on 1 Nov. 1803, and regimental lieutenant-colonel on 20 July 1804. During all this period he devoted not only his leisure time but all the money which he could spare to his inventions, and in 1803 he had attained such great success that his case-shot or shell was recommended by the board of ordnance for adoption into the service. In 1804 Shrapnel was appointed first assistant-inspector of artillery, and was for many years engaged at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich in developing and perfecting this and other inventions connected with ordnance.
