1849–54). In 1857 he was appointed aulic councillor to the king of Saxony, and he was standing counsel to the Saxon legation until it was abolished by the war of 1866.
In 1858 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, then colonial secretary, appointed Colquhoun a member of the supreme court of justice in the Ionian Islands, and in 1861 he became chief justice of the court, and was knighted. In the following year the high commissioner, Sir Henry Knight Storks [q. v.], dismissed two Ionian judges. Colquhoun took their part, and in 1864, after the cession of the islands to Greece, he bitterly attacked Storks in 'The Dismissal of the Ionian Judges: a Letter to Sir H. Storks' (London, 8vo). Storks's action was, however, upheld by the colonial office. In 1875 Colquhoun published a treatise on 'The Supreme Court of Judicature Acts' (London, 8vo), which reached a second edition in the same year. This was followed by 'Russian Despotism' (London, 1877, 8vo), evoked by the Bulgarian atrocity agitation, and 'A Concise History of the Order of the Temple' (Bedford, 1878, 8vo), which was dedicated to the Prince of Wales. In 1886 he was elected honorary fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. He died at his chambers in King's Bench Walk, Temple, on 18 May 1891; his widow, Katherine, daughter of M. de St. Vitalis, whom he married in 1843, survives him.
Colquhoun was a man of remarkable linguistic attainments; he spoke most of the tongues and many of the dialects of Europe, was a thorough classical scholar and a jurist. He received orders of merit from the sultan of Turkey, the kings of Greece and of Saxony, and the duke of Oldenburg. He was also, like his brother, the Chevalier James du Colquhoun (d. 1891), who founded the Cercle Nautique at Cannes (Times, 25 March 1891), a noted oarsman. In 1837 (Woodgate, pp. 38, 296, or in 1835 according to his own account, Eagle, xi. 228) he won the Wingfield sculls, which made him amateur champion of England, and in the same year he founded the Colquhoun sculls for the benefit of the Lady Margaret Boat Club; in 1842 the prize was thrown open to the university. In 1837 he also rowed at Henley in a race between St. John's College, Cambridge, and Queen's College, Oxford, the head boats of the respective universities, and for many years he was secretary of the Leander Boat Club.
[The best account of Colquhoun is contained in the Eagle (St. John's College, Cambridge, Magazine), xvi. 567–72. See also Colquhoun's letter in the Eagle, xiv. 228 sqq.; his works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Graduati Cantabr. 1800–1884; Times, 19 May 1891; Foster's Peerage, &c., and Men at the Bar; Barker and Stenning's Westm. Sch. Reg.; Woodgate's Boating, pp. 38, 243, 296; Men of the Time, 13th edit.; information from R. F. Scott, esq., St. John's College, Cambridge.]
CONGREVE, RICHARD (1818–1899), positivist, third son of Thomas Congreve, by Julia his wife, was born at Leamington Hastings, Warwickshire, on 4 Sept. 1818. He was educated under Dr. Arnold at Rugby, and at the university of Oxford, where he gained a scholarship at Wadham College, matriculated on 23 Feb. 1837, graduated B.A. (first class in literæ humaniores) in 1840, and proceeded M.A. in 1843. He came to Oxford a typical pupil of Arnold, high-minded, intensely earnest, and latitudinarian in his theological opinions. His success in the schools was naturally followed by election to a fellowship at his college, where, with a brief interval during which he taught a form at Rugby, he resided as tutor for the next ten years. His influence upon his pupils is said to have been singularly bracing, morally as well as intellectually.
The turning-point in Congreve's life was a visit to Paris shortly after the revolution of 1848. He there met Barthélemy St.-Hilaire and Auguste Comte, and the influence of the latter thinker proved decisive and enduring. On his return to Oxford he embarked on a course of study which resulted in the adoption of the entire positivist system, including the religious cult. He in consequence resigned his fellowship (1855), left Oxford, and soon afterwards founded the positivist community in London. While preparing for his life-work as exponent of the new gospel he studied medicine, and in 1866 was admitted M.R.C.P. In the early days of the movement he took the chief part in the establishment of the propaganda in Chapel Street, Lamb's Conduit Street, London, and for some years worked harmoniously with Mr. Frederic Harrison and other leading positivists. In 1878, however, he issued a circular (17 June) in which he claimed for himself an authority independent of M. Pierre Lafitte, Comte's principal executor, and as such then universally acknowledged as the head of the positivist community. Some positivists joined him; others, among whom were Mr. Frederic Harrison, Dr. Bridges, Professor Beesly, Mr. Vernon Lushington, and James Cotter Morison [q. v.], remained in union with M. Lafitte, and opened Newton Hall, Fetter Lane, London, as their place of meeting. Congreve used the freedom which this separation allowed him to elaborate a higher form
