Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/38

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Bill
30
Billing


under date 1 Jan. 1553-4. It seems likely that he held that office under Edward VI, but it is surprising that Mary should not have dismissed him immediately upon her accession. Probably she did m shortly afterwards, for he spent the greater part of her brief reign in retirement at Sandy, in Bedfordshire, of which one of his kinsmen, Burgoyne, was rector On 20 Nov. 1558, the Sunday after the proclamation of Elizabeth as queen, he preached at St. Paul's Cross, striving to allay the popular excitement which was manifesting itself in brutal outrages upon the catholics. The same year he was appointed to assist Parker in revising the liturgy of Edward VI, and was reinstated in the office of chief almoner and in the mastership of Trinity. In Lent of the following year he preached before the queen, and (20 June) was appointed, with Sir W. Cecil, Parker, and others, visitor of Eton College and of the university of Cambridge, and on 5 July following was appointed provost of Eton College, having been elected fellow on 20 June. On 20 Sept. of the same year he instituted himself to the prebend of Milton Ecclesia, in the county of Oxford and church of Lincoln, the advowson of which had been devised to him by his brother Thomas, who died in 1551-2. He again preached before the queen on March 1559-60, and in the same year was placed on a commission, of which Parker and the bishop of London were also members, for the revision of the prayer-book. On 30 June he was installed dean of Westminster. On his appointment he framed a set of statutes for the regulation of the collegiate church, which were adopted by his successor, Gabriel Goodman. In this year one of the hostages given by the Scots for the due fulfilment of their part of the treaty of Berwick (April 1560), Archibald, son of Lord Ruthven, was placed under his care. The boy was still with him at his death, which took place 15 July of the following year. He was buried on the 20th in the chapel of St. Benedict in Westminster Abbey, to which, as also to Trinity College, Cambridge, he was a donor by his will. Five couplets of Latin elegiac verse of no particular merit are still legible beneath his effigy in the abbey, and may also be read by the curious in Cooper's 'Athenæ Cantabrigienses' (i. 210), where also will be found an abstract of his will.

[Cussans's Hertfordshire, Hd. of Odsey, i. 28, 30; Neale and Brayley's Westminster, i. 109, 116; Dart's Westm. i. 101, Keepe's Westm. 53, 226; Strype's Cheke (8vo), 18; Strype's Smith, cap. ii. as fin., cap. vii. as init.; Strype's Grindal (fol.), 7, 24, 39; Strype's Cramner (fol.), 273, 301; Strype's Parker (fol.), i. 43, 79; Strype's Whitgrift, App. bk. i. No. vii.; Strype's Mem. (fol.). ii. pt. i. 297, pt. ii. 523. 529; Strype's Ann. (fol.), i. pt. i. 167, 199. 270, ii. pt. ii 490, App. bk. ii. No. x. iv., Suppl. No. ix.; Rymer's Fœdera (2nd ed.). xv. 494, 590; Machyn's Diary (Camd. Soc.), 264; Harwood's Alumni Eton. 9, 59; Ascham's Epist. 75, 87, 203, 311; Welch's Alumni Westmon. (1852), 4; MS. Baker, x. 151; T. Baker's Hist. of St. John's (Mayor), 127, 129, 146; Cal. State Papers, Dom. (1547-80), 56; Scotland, i. 138; Burnet's Reform. (Pocock), ii, 294, 600, ii. 59, 502; Froude, vii. 18.]

J. M. R.


BILLING, ARCHIBALD (1791–1881), physician and writer on art, was the son of Theodore Billing of Cromlyn, in the county of Dublin, and was born there on 10 Jan. 1791. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1807, graduated A.B. 1811, M.B. 1814, M.D. 1818, and was incorporated M.D. at Oxford on his Dublin degree on 22 Oct. 1818. He says himself that he spent seven years in clinical study at Irish, British, and continental hospitals before he sought a fee, but about 1815 must have settled in London, was admitted candidate (member) of the College of Physicians on 22 Dec. 1818, and fellow on 22'Dec. 1819. He was censor of the college in 1823, and councillor 1852-5. Billing was long connected with the London Hospital, to which foundation, after having been engfaged in teaching there since 1817, he was elected physician on 2 July 1822. In 1823 he began a course of clinical lectures, the first course of that kind, combined with regular bedside teaching, given in London. He ceased to lecture in 1836, and resigned the post of physician on 4 June 1845. On the foimdation of the university of London in 1836, Billing was invited to become a member of the senate, and occupied an influential position on that body for many years. He was also for a considerable time examiner in medicine. He was fellow of the Royal Society, and an active member of many other scientific and medical societies. After a long and distinguished professional career, he retired from practice many years before his death, which occurred on 2 Sept. 1881 at his house in Park Lane.

Billing was a physician of high general culture, and possessed of many accomplishments not professional. His acute and logical intellect served him well in embodying his large experience in a well-known manual, 'The First Principles of Medicine,' which, in its first issue in 1831 hardly more than a pamphlet, grew to a bulky text-book. It was at one time very popular, and ran to six editions, though now almost forgotten. He gave special attention to diseases of the chest, and was among the earliest medical