Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/462

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Chalon
456
Chaloner

them to the nation, with a similarly unsatisfactory result. Late in life he retired with his brother to an old house on Campden Hill, Kensington, and there died, 3 Oct. 1860. His numerous friends bore unanimous testimony to the delightful social qualities of the man, and were ungrudging in their recognition of his genius.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Painters; Ottley's Supplement to Bryan's Dict. of Painters; Graves's Dict. of Artists; Athenæum, June to December 1860, pp. 487, 756, 792; Art Journal, 1860, p. 337, 1862, p. 9, an article upon A. E. Chalon by James Dafforne; Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. Leslie, ed. Tom Taylor, 2 vols. passim; Recollections of T. Ewins, 2 vols. 1853, passim.]

E. R.

CHALON, JOHN JAMES (1778–1854), landscape and genre painter, born 27 March 1778, was of a French family which had resided at Geneva since the revocation of the edict of Nantes. In 1789 the family came to England, and Chalon's father was appointed professor of French language and literature at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. The son was intended for business; but his artistic proclivities were strongly marked, and in 1796 he became a student at the Royal Academy. In 1800 he exhibited his first picture, ‘Banditti at their Repast,’ shortly followed by ‘A Landscape’ and ‘Fortune Telling.’ Chalon's early practice was in oils, but in 1806 he began to exhibit at the gallery of the Water-colour Society, and in 1808 became a member of that body. He was among the seceders from the society in 1813. In 1816 he exhibited an important work at the Royal Academy, ‘Napoleon on board the Bellerophon,’ which he presented to Greenwich Hospital. This was followed by a fine painting, ‘A View of Hastings,’ which is now in the South Kensington Museum. In 1827 he was elected associate of the Royal Academy, and became a full member in 1841. Among his later works may be mentioned ‘Gil Blas in the Robbers' Cave,’ 1843, and the ‘Arrival of the Steam-packet at Folkestone,’ 1844. In 1847 he was stricken with paralysis, and died after a long illness on 14 Nov. 1854. He is said by Redgrave to have painted but few pictures, and to have supported himself by teaching. He exhibited, however, as many as 135 pictures in oils at the Royal Academy and at the British Institute, and had made his mark, moreover, as a water-colour painter. In 1820 he published a book of ‘Sketches of Parisian Manners,’ which was much admired by Stothard. He was a friend of C. R. Leslie, R.A., who greatly respected his genius, and wrote of him that few painters had so great a range, or attained to so equal an excellence, in so many departments of art. He painted landscapes, figure and animal subjects, and marine pictures with equal facility and success. He belonged, with his brother Alfred Edward [q. v.], to an evening sketching club, which included Leslie and Clarkson Stansfield among its members.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists; Art Journal, 1855, p. 24, article by Leslie, signed ‘C. R. L.;’ Athenæum, 18 Nov. 1854.]

E. R.

CHALONER, —— (d. 1643), a chief actor in Edmund Waller's plot of 1643, is described in contemporary accounts as ‘an eminent citizen’ and linendraper of London. He lived in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange, and had a partner named Norton. Together with Nathaniel Tomkins, secretary to the queen's council, and Waller's brother-in-law, he organised, early in 1643, a society which was intended to bring together all citizens desirous of effecting a peace between the parliament and Charles I. The king approved the plan; and on news of it reaching Pym (30 May 1643), Chaloner, Tomkins, Waller, and a few others implicated in it were placed under arrest. The Earl of Essex was directed by the House of Commons to appoint a council of war to try the prisoners, and on Friday, 30 June, the trial of Tomkins and Chaloner began at the Guildhall, before the Earl of Manchester. Both were found guilty on Monday (2 July), and the sentence of death was carried out on the following Wednesday (4 July). Chaloner was hanged in front of his own house. On the scaffold he timidly acknowledged the justice of his sentence, at the same time insisting on the pacific aims of his conspiracy. Hugh Peters attended him, and his father offered him a royal pardon, which he declined to touch. He and his friend Tomkins alone suffered capital punishment.

[See art. Edmund Waller (1605–1687), infra; Rushworth's Collections, iii. 2, 322–7; Clarendon's Hist. bk. vii. 71; Ranke's Hist. of England (English transl.), ii. 376; British Museum Coll. of Newspapers for 1643, vol. ii.; Chaloner's Speech on the Scaffold, 1643; A True Discovrie of the Great Plot, 1643.]

S. L. L.

CHALONER, JAMES (1603–1660), regicide and antiquary, was fourth son of Sir Thomas Chaloner the younger [q. v.], of Guisborough, Yorkshire, and Steeple Claydon in Buckinghamshire. In 1616 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, and after leaving the university became a member of one of the inns of court. He married Ursula, daughter of Sir William Fairfax of Steeton, and his con-