10. 'Spring Blossoms and Autumn Leaves' (poems), 1893. A collected edition of his works was published in eight volumes, 1882-6, and in 1896 his 'Ab-o'th'-Yate Sketches and other short Stories,' edited by James Dronsfield, were published at Oldham in three volumes, with illustrations by F. W. Jackson. Both author and editor died before the last work was completed.
Brierley's writings, in which he endeavoured 'to rescue the Lancashire character from the erroneous conceptions of Tim Bobbin,' retain their great popularity throughout the county. They are written largely in the dialect of the southern part of Lancashire, and are valuable as faithful pictures of the humour and social characteristics of the poorer classes of the district.
[Brierley's Home Memories; Ben Brierley's Journal, 28 Nov. 1874; Manchester City News, 21 March 1885, 20 Jan. 1896, 7 May 1898; Manchester Guardian, 29 Oct. 1892, 20 Jan. 1896, 2 May 1898; Manchester Courier, 20 Jan. 1896; Papers of the Manchester Literary Chib, 1896, p. 487.]
BRIERLY, Sir OSWALD WALTERS (1817–1894), marine painter, son of Thomas Brierly, a doctor and amateur artist, who belonged to an old Cheshire family, was born at Chester on 19 May 1817. After a general grounding in art at the academy of Henry Sass [q. v.] in Bloomsbury, he went to Plymouth to study naval architecture and rigging. He exhibited drawings of two men-of-war at Plymouth, the Pique and the Gorgon, at the Royal Academy in 1839. He then spent some time in the study of navigation, and in 1841 started on a voyage round the world with Benjamin Boyd [q. v.] in the yacht Wanderer. Boyd, however, established himself in New South Wales, and did not continue the voyage. Brierly, too, became a colonist, and settled in Auckland. Brierly Point, on the coast of New South Wales, commemorates his connection with that colony. In 1848 Captain Owen Stanley, elder brother of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, then in command of her Majesty's ship Rattlesnake, invited Brierly to be his guest during an admiralty survey of the north and east coast of Australia and the adjacent islands, in which Thomas Henry Huxley [q. v. Suppl.] took part as biological observer. Brierly accompanied the survey during two cruises and took not only sketches, but notes of considerable value, which, however, remained unpublished. His name was given to an island in the Louisiade archipelago. In March 1850 the Hon. Henry Keppel asked Brierly to join him on the Meander. He then visited New Zealand, the Friendly and Society Islands, and crossed the Pacific to Valparaiso. The cruise extended to the coasts of Chile, Peru, and Mexico, and the ship returned by the Straits of Magellan and Rio de Janeiro, and reached England at the end of July 1851.
Keppel's account of the voyage, published in 1853, was illustrated by eight lithographs by Brierly, who was made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society on his return. After the declaration of war with Russia in February 1854 Brierly was again Keppel's guest, on the St. Jean d'Acre, and the painter was present at all the operations of the allied fleets in the Baltic, and sent home sketches for publication in the 'Illustrated London News.' On the return of the fleet Brierly had a series of fifteen large lithographs executed from his drawings, which were published on 2 April 1855, with the title 'The English and French Fleets in the Baltic, 1854.' In the second year of the war he accompanied Keppel to the Black Sea; witnessed all the chief events of the war in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, and visited Circassia and Mingrelia with the Duke of Newcastle on the Highflyer. After his return he was commanded by the Queen to take sketches from the royal yacht of the great naval review which was held at Spithead at the end of the war. This was the commencement of a third period in the artist's career, during which he received the constant patronage of the royal family. In 1863 he accompanied Count Gleichen [see Victor] in the Racoon, on which the Duke of Edinburgh was lieutenant, to Norway, and when the duke was appointed to the command of the Galatea, Brierly was attached to his suite and accompanied him on a cruise in the Mediterranean and afterwards round the world, which lasted from 26 Feb. 1867 to 26 June 1868. The sketches made by Brierly during the voyage were exhibited at South Kensington in 1868, and he contributed the illustrations to the record of the voyage by the Rev. John Milner, published in 1869. In 1868 Brierly was attached to the suite of the Prince and Princess of Wales during their tour to the Nile, Constantinople, and the Crimea. He contributed five drawings to the Royal Academy exhibitions of 1859-61; he exhibited again in 1870-1, but ceased to exhibit at the Academy on becoming an associate of the Royal Water-colour Society in 1872. During the remainder of his life he contributed about two hundred water-colours to the society's exhibitions. These were in part founded on his early experiences of travel. His visits to Venice in 1874 and 1882 also supplied him materials for many
