computations. He wrote besides: Tables écliptiques des satellites de Jupiter, inserted in the third edition of J. J. Lalande’s Astronomie (1792), and republished in an improved form by the bureau of longitudes in 1817; Méthodes analytiques pour la détermination d’un arc du méridien (1799); Tables du soleil (publiées par le bureau des longitudes) (1806); Rapport historique sur les progrès des sciences mathématiques depuis l’an 1789 (1810); Abrégé d’astronomie (1813); Astronomie théorique et pratique (1814); &c.
See J. B. J. Fourier’s “Éloge” in Mémoires de l’acad. des sciences, t. iv.; Ch. Dupin, Revue encyclopédique, t. xvi. (1822); Biog. universelle, t. lxii. (C. L. Mathieu); Max. Marie, Hist. des sciences, x. 31; R. Grant, Hist. of Physical Astr. pp. 96, 142, 165; R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, p. 779, &c. (A. M. C.)
DELAMERE (or De la Mer), GEORGE BOOTH, 1st Baron
(1622–1684), son of William Booth, a member of an ancient
family settled at Dunham Massey in Cheshire, and of Vere,
daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Egerton, was born in August
1622. He took an active part in the Civil War with his grandfather,
Sir George Booth, on the parliamentary side. He was
returned for Cheshire to the Long Parliament in 1645 and to
Cromwell’s parliaments of 1654 and 1656. In 1655 he was
appointed military commissioner for Cheshire and treasurer at
war. He was one of the excluded members who tried and failed
to regain their seats after the fall of Richard Cromwell in 1659.
He had for some time been regarded by the royalists as a well-wisher
to their cause, and was described to the king in May 1659
as “very considerable in his country, a presbyterian in opinion,
yet so moral a man . . . I think your Majesty may safely [rely]
on him and his promises which are considerable and hearty.”[1]
He now became one of the chief leaders of the new “royalists”
who at this time united with the cavaliers to effect the restoration.
A rising was arranged for the 5th of August in several
districts, and Booth took charge of operations in Cheshire,
Lancashire and North Wales. He got possession of Chester on
the 19th, issued a proclamation declaring that arms had been
taken up “in vindication of the freedom of parliament, of the
known laws, liberty and property,” and marched towards York.
The plot, however, was known to Thurloe. It had entirely failed
in other parts of the country, and Lambert advancing with his
forces defeated Booth’s men at Nantwich Bridge. Booth himself
escaped disguised as a woman, but was discovered at Newport
Pagnell on the 23rd in the act of shaving, and was imprisoned
in the Tower. He was, however, soon liberated, took his seat in
the parliament of 1659–1660, and was one of the twelve members
deputed to carry the message of the Commons to Charles II. at
the Hague. In July 1660 he received a grant of £10,000, having
refused the larger sum of £20,000 at first offered to him, and on
the 20th of April 1661, on the occasion of the coronation, he was
created Baron Delamere, with a licence to create six new knights.
The same year he was appointed custos rotulorum of Cheshire.
In later years he showed himself strongly antagonistic to the
reactionary policy of the government. He died on the 8th of
August 1684, and was buried at Bowdon. He married (1) Lady
Catherine Clinton, daughter and co-heir of Theophilus, 4th earl
of Lincoln, by whom he had one daughter; and (2) Lady
Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Henry, 1st earl of Stamford, by
whom, besides five daughters, he had seven sons, the second of
whom, Henry, succeeded him in the title and estates and was
created earl of Warrington. The earldom became extinct on the
death of the latter’s son, the 2nd earl, without male issue, in 1758,
and the barony of Delamere terminated in the person of the 4th
baron in 1770; the title was revived in 1821 in the Cholmondeley
family.
DE LAND, a town and the county-seat of Volusia county,
Florida, U.S.A., 111 m. by rail S. of Jacksonville, 20 m. from the
Atlantic coast and 4 m. from the St John’s river. Pop. (1900)
1449; (1910) 2812. De Land is served by the Atlantic Coast
Line and by steamboats on the St John’s river. It has a fine
winter climate, with an average temperature of 60° F., has
sulphur springs, and is a health and winter resort. There is a
starch factory here; and the surrounding country is devoted to
fruit-growing. De Land is the seat of the John B. Stetson
University (coeducational), an undenominational institution
under Baptist control, founded in 1884, as an academy, by
Henry A. De Land, a manufacturer of Fairport, New York, and
in 1887 incorporated under the name of De Land University,
which was changed in 1889 to the present name, in honour of
John Batterson Stetson (1830–1906), a Philadelphia manufacturer
of hats, who during his life gave nearly $500,000 to
the institution. The university includes a college of liberal arts,
a department of law, a school of technology, an academy, a
normal school, a model school, a business college and a school of
music. De Land was founded in 1876 by H. A. De Land, above
mentioned, who built a public school here in 1877 and a high
school in 1883.
DELANE, JOHN THADEUS (1817–1879), editor of The Times
(London), was born on the 11th of October 1817 in London. He
was the second son of Mr W. F. A. Delane, a barrister, of an
old Irish family, who about 1832 was appointed by Mr Walter
financial manager of The Times. While still a boy he attracted
Mr Walter’s attention, and it was always intended that he should
find work on the paper. He received a good general education at
private schools and King’s College, London, and also at Magdalen
Hall, Oxford; after taking his degree in 1840 he at once began
work on the paper, though later he read for the bar, being called
in 1847. In 1841 he succeeded Thomas Barnes as editor, a post
which he occupied for thirty-six years. He from the first obtained
the best introductions into society and the chief political circles,
and had a position there such as no journalist had previously
enjoyed, using his opportunities with a sure intuition for the way
in which events would move. His staff included some of the
most brilliant men of the day, who worked together with a
common ideal. The result to the paper, which in those days
had hardly any real competitor in English journalism, was an
excellence of information which gave it great power. (See Newspapers.)
Delane was a man of many interests and great judgment;
capable of long application and concentrated attention,
with power to seize always on the main point at issue, and rapidly
master the essential facts in the most complicated affair. His
general policy was to keep the paper a national organ of opinion
above party, but with a tendency to sympathize with the Liberal
movements of the day. He admired Palmerston and respected
Lord Aberdeen, and was of considerable use to both; and it was
Lord Aberdeen himself who, in 1845, told him of the impending
repeal of the Corn Laws, an incident round which many incorrect
stories have gathered. The history, however, of the events
during the thirteen administrations, between 1841 and 1877, in
which The Times, and therefore Delane, played an important
part cannot here be recapitulated. In 1877 his health gave way,
and he retired from the editorship; and on the 22nd of November
1879 he died at Ascot.
A biography by his nephew, Arthur Irwin Dasent, was published in 1908.
DELANY, MARY GRANVILLE (1700–1788), an Englishwoman
of literary tastes, was born at Coulston, Wilts, on the
14th of May 1700. She was a niece of the 1st Lord Lansdowne.
In 1717 or 1718 she was unhappily married to Alexander
Pendarves, a rich old Cornish landowner, who died in 1724.
During a visit to Ireland she met Dean Swift and his intimate
friend, the Irish divine, Patrick Delany, whose second wife she
became in 1743. After his death in 1768 she passed all her
summers with her bosom friend the dowager duchess of Portland—Prior’s
“Peggy”—and when the latter died George III. and
Queen Charlotte, whose affection for their “dearest Mrs Delany”
seems to have been most genuine, gave her a small house at
Windsor and a pension of £300 a year. Fanny Burney (Madame
D’Arblay) was introduced to her in 1783, and frequently visited
her at her London home and at Windsor, and owed to her friendship
her court appointment. At this time Mrs Delany was a
charming and sweet old lady, with a reputation for cutting out
and making the ingenious “paper mosaiks” now in the British
Museum; she had known every one worth knowing in her day,
- ↑ Clarendon, State Papers, iii. 472.
