Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/381

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In June 1572 he was at Mechlin. In the same year he wrote to Jane Dormer, duchess of Feria, to urge King Philip to take more energetic means relative to England, as the refugees were without hope. He was then receiving a pension from King Philip of one hundred florins per month.

A Latin epitaph upon a monumental stone formerly visible in the church of St. Nicholas at Brussels records that he died in that city on 12 Aug. 1573. In this epitaph he is styled Baron Dacre of Gilsland (Le Grand Théâtre sacré de Brabant, ed. 1734, i. 240; Records of the English Catholics, i. 298).

[Sharp's Memorials, pp. 166, 179, 214, 263; Lodge's Illustr. of British History (1838), i. 441; Sadler's State Papers, ii. 31, 101, 114, 140; Burke's Extinct Peerages, 3rd edit. p. 154; Thomas's Hist. Notes, p. 410; Talbot Papers, C 226, D 36, 234, 236, 240, P 145; Lingard's Hist, of England (1849), vi. 218-20; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.]

T. C.

DACRES, ARTHUR, M.D. (1624–1678), physician, was sixth son of Sir Thomas Dacres, knight, of Cheshunt, and was born in that parish, where he was baptised on 18 April 1624. He entered at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in December 1642, and graduated B.A. in 1645. He was elected a fellow of his college on 22 July 1646, and took the degree of M.D. on 28 July 1654. He settled in London and was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians on 26 June 1665, and assistant-physician to Sir John Micklethwaite at St. Bartholomew's Hospital on the resignation of Dr. Terne, 13 May 1653. On 20 May 1664 he was appointed professor of geometry at Gresham College, but only held office for ten months. He was censor at the College of Physicians in 1672, and died in September 1678, being still assistant-physician at St. Bartholomew's.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, i. 354; MS. Minute Book of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.]

N. M.

DACRES, Sir RICHARD JAMES (1799–1886), field-marshal, elder son of Vice-admiral Sir Richard Dacres, G.C.H., was born in 1799. He received a nomination to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1815, and, after passing through the course of instruction there, was gazetted a second lieutenant in the royal artillery on 15 Dec. 1817. He was promoted first lieutenant on 29 Aug. 1825, and captain on 18 Dec. 1837, and was in 1843 transferred to the royal horse artillery, of which he commanded the 2nd, or Black Troop, for many years in different parts of the world, but without seeing any service. He was promoted major by brevet on 11 Nov. 1851, and lieutenant-colonel on 23 Feb. 1852, and in 1854 was appointed to command the force of royal horse artillery, consisting of three troops, designed to accompany the army sent to Turkey. This force was attached to the cavalry division under Lieutenant-general the Earl of Lucan, and Dacres commanded it in the descent on the Crimea and at the battle of the Alma. It headed the advance on Sebastopol, and was engaged at Bulganak and Mackenzie's farm, and the battle of Balaclava, and in the repulse of the Russian sortie of 24 Oct. Dacres commanded all the artillery engaged. At the battle of Inkerman Dacres was present with the head-quarters staff, and had his horse killed under him, and on the death of Brigadier-general Fox-Strangways in that battle he took command of all the artillery in the Crimea, a post which he filled until the end of the war. As officer commanding the artillery Dacres superintended the various bombardments of Sebastopol, though always under the direction of General Sir John Burgoyne, the commanding royal engineer, and he was promoted colonel by brevet on 23 Feb. 1855, and major-general on 29 June 1855, and was made a K.C.B. in that month for his distinguished services. At the conclusion of the war he received a medal and four clasps, as well as the Turkish medal, and was made a commander of the Legion of Honour, a commander of the 1st class of the order of Savoy, and a knight of the 2nd class of the Medjidie. After his return to England he commanded the Woolwich district from 1859 to 1865, and was made colonel-commandant of the royal horse artillery on 28 July 1864, and promoted lieutenant-general on 18 Dec. 1864. He was further promoted full general on 2 Feb. 1868, and made a G.C.B. in 1869, and was placed on the retired list. He was appointed constable of the Tower of London, in succession to Sir William Fenwick Williams [q. v.], on 27 July 1881, and became master gunner of England, as senior officer of the royal artillery, in the following year. In July 1886 he was made a field-marshal, but he did not long survive this last promotion, and died at Brighton, aged 87, on 6 Dec. 1886.

[Hart's Army List; Duncan's History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery; Times, 8 Dec. 1886.]

H. M. S.

DACRES, Sir SIDNEY COLPOYS (1805–1884), admiral, son of Vice-admiral Sir Richard (d. 1837), and brother of General Sir Richard James Dacres, constable of the Tower [q. v.], entered the navy in 1817, and received his commission as lieutenant in 1827. In 1828, while lieutenant of the Blonde frigate, he was landed in command of a party of seamen to assist in the reduction of Kastro