Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bosanquet, James Whatman
BOSANQUET, JAMES WHATMAN (1804–1877), a partner in the banking-house of Bosanquet, Salt, & Co., and a writer on biblical and Assyrian chronology, was born 10 Jan. 1804, educated at Westminster, and at the age of eighteen entered the bank with which his family is connected. His earliest publications related to his business; they were a paper on ‘Metallic, Paper, and Credit Currency,’ 1842, and a ‘Letter to the Right Hon. G. Cornewall Lewis on the Bank Charter Act of 1844,’ 1857; but the rest of his literary work was mainly concerned with researches into the chronology of the Bible. In 1848 appeared his ‘Chronology of the Times of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah;’ in 1853, the ‘Fall of Nineveh and the Siege of Sennacherib, chronologically considered;’ in 1866, ‘Messiah the Prince, or the Inspiration of the Prophecies of Daniel’ (2nd edition 1869); in 1867, ‘Hebrew Chronology from Solomon to Christ;’ in 1871, ‘Chronological Remarks on Assurbanipal;’ and in 1878 his treatise ‘On the Date of Lachish,’ &c. He was a generous contributor to the ‘ Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology,' not merely in word but in deed, for besides writing papers, he paid nearly half the expenses of publication, and bore a considerable share in the cost of bringing out other works on Assyriology, insomuch that the president of the society, in pronouncing his éloge, described him as 'the Mæcenas of Assyriology.' He died 22 Dec. 1877.
[Proc. Society Bibl. Archæology, 1877–8; information received from his son, B. T. Bosanquet, esq.]