Archbishop Tenison's grammar school, near Charing Cross. Afterwards he was employed by Topham Beauclerk in making astronomical observations in a building which the latter had erected for the purpose. This establishment was broken up by the death of Beauclerk in 1780, and in the year following Dalby was appointed mathematical master in the naval school at Chelsea. About this time he was recommended by Ramsden, the philosophical instrument maker, to General Roy, whom he assisted from 1787 to 1790 in making a trigonometrical survey for the purpose of connecting the meridians of Greenwich and Paris. He was engaged at a later period with Colonel Williams and Captain Mudge to carry on the trigonometrical survey of England and Wales. In 1799 he was appointed professor of mathematics in the Royal Military College, High Wycombe, which was subsequently removed to Farnham in Surrey, and is better known as Sandhurst College. This post he held for twenty-one years, resigning it in 1820, when old age and infirmity had overtaken him. He published: 1. ‘Account of the late Reuben Burrow's Measurement of a Degree of Longitude and another of Latitude in Bengal,’ London, 1796, 4to. 2. ‘Account of the Operations for accomplishing a Trigonometrical Survey of England and Wales, from the commencement in 1784 to the end in 1796,’ 3 vols. London, 1799, 4to. 3. ‘A Course of Mathematics designed for the use of the Officers and Cadets of the Royal Military College,’ 2 vols. London, 1805, 8vo. 4. ‘The Longitude of Dunkirk and Paris from Greenwich, deduced from the Triangular Measurement in 1787–1788, supposing the Earth to be an Ellipsis,’ Phil. Trans. abr. xvii. 67, 1791. He was besides a contributor to the ‘Ladies' Diary.’ Dalby died at Farnham in Surrey, on 3 Feb. 1824, in the eightieth year of his age. He was an original member of the Linnean Society (Nichols, Illustr. vi. 834.)
[Imperial Dict. of Universal Biog. ed. Waller, ii. 4; Watt's Bibl. Brit. i. 280 f.]
DALBY, ROBERT (d. 1589), catholic divine, a native of the bishopric of Durham, studied at Douay College during its temporary stay at Rheims, was ordained priest there, and sent back on the mission in 1588. Soon afterwards he and John Amias, another priest, were apprehended and condemned to death as traitors on account of their sacerdotal character. They suffered together at York on 16 March 1588–9.
[Challoner's Missionary Priests (1741), i. 237; Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 94; Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, iii. 40, 51; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.]
DALDERBY, JOHN de (d. 1320), bishop of Lincoln, took his name from, and perhaps was born in, a small village near Horncastle, Lincolnshire, now united with Scrivelsby. The first mention of him occurs as canon of St. David's. He became archdeacon of Carmarthen in 1283 (Wharton, Anglia Sacra). He was appointed chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral and head of the theological school there, which had obtained high reputation at this period. On 15 Jan. 1300 he was elected bishop of the see in succession to Oliver Sutton. His election was confirmed 17 March, and on 12 June he was consecrated at Canterbury by Archbishop Winchelsey. The year after this Edward I was the bishop's guest at the manor of Nettleham, near Lincoln, from January to March, during which time an important parliament was being held in Lincoln. John de Schalby, the bishop's secretary, speaks in the highest terms of the bishop's great learning, eloquence, and liberality. He gave to the cathedral church the tithes of three parochial churches, made some considerable additions to the property of the corporation of priest-vicars, and made other benefactions to the church. In the parliament, at which he assisted, the prelates refused to join with the barons in granting a subsidy to the king without the consent of the pope. The king endeavoured to enforce his claim, but this was resisted by Dalderby. In his ‘Memorandum Register’ there is a letter addressed to his archdeacons and officials bidding them excommunicate the king's officers if they should attempt to collect from ecclesiastics the tax voted by the parliament (Banbury, December 1301). At this period the religious orders were in a very demoralised state. There are several records in Dalderby's register of proceedings against disorderly nuns who had escaped from their convents; and in 1308 the bishop was called upon to take part in a commission appointed by the pope to try the knights templars on the charges brought against them. Great cruelties had been previously inflicted on this order in France. In England they fared somewhat better, and there is clear evidence in Dalderby's register that he disliked the office put upon him, and endeavoured to evade acting in it. There are entries of several letters addressed to the pope excusing himself from taking part in the trials on the ground of ill-health and the great amount of business to which he had to attend. The templars in England were ultimately condemned (July 1311) by the convocation of Canterbury to imprisonment in monasteries. The bishop's register contains the list of the names of the knights to be imprisoned in
