Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/431

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rymple was the author of ‘Three Letters to the Right Hon. Viscount Barrington,’ 1778; ‘The Question considered whether Wool should be allowed to be exported when the Price is low at Home, on paying a Duty to the Public,’ 1782; ‘Queries concerning the Conduct which England should follow in Foreign Politics in the Present State of Europe,’ 1789; ‘Plan of Internal Defence as proposed to a Meeting of the County of Edinburgh, 12 Nov. 1794,’ 1794; ‘Consequences of the French Invasion,’ 1798; ‘Oriental Repository,’ vol. i. 1810. An amusing letter of his to Admiral Dalrymple is printed in Nichols's ‘Illustrations,’ i. 791–2. He died on 26 Feb. 1810. By his cousin Elizabeth, only child and heiress of Thomas Hamilton Macgill of Fala, and heiress of the Viscounts Oxenford, he had several children, and he was succeeded in the baronetcy by his fourth son, Sir John Hamilton Macgill Dalrymple [q. v.], who became eighth earl of Stair in 1840, and in 1841 was created Baron Oxenford in the United Kingdom. The fifth son, North Hamilton Dalrymple, became ninth earl.

[Burke's Peerage; Anderson's Scottish Nation; Hill Burton's Life of Hume; Thomas Somerville's Own Life and Times, 1861; Alexander Carlyle's Memoirs of his own Times, 1860; Boswell's Life of Johnson; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. iv. 449.]

T. F. H.

DALRYMPLE, JOHN, sixth Earl of Stair (1749–1821), eldest son of John, fifth earl of Stair [q. v.], and his wife, a daughter of George Middleton, banker, London, was born 24 Sept. 1749. As captain of the 87th foot he served in the first American war, being present at the successful attack on New London and Fort Griswold in September 1781 under Sir Henry Clinton, who sent him home with the despatches. On 5 Jan. 1782 he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to Poland, and from 5 Aug. 1785 until 1788 was minister plenipotentiary to Berlin. He succeeded to the peerage on the death of his father in 1789, and was a representative peer 1793–1807 and from 1827 until death. He died without issue on 1 June 1821.

[Douglas's Scotch Peerage (Wood), pp. 534–5; Annual Register, lxiii. 238.]

T. F. H.

DALRYMPLE, JOHN (1803–1852), ophthalmic surgeon, eldest son of William Dalrymple, surgeon [q. v.], was born at Norwich in 1803. He studied under his father and at Edinburgh, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1827, and settled in London. Making the surgery of the eye his special study, he was in 1832 elected assistant-surgeon to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, and in 1843 full surgeon. In 1850 he was chosen F.R.S., and in 1851 a member of the council of the College of Surgeons. After attaining, in spite of feeble health, a very large practice in his speciality, with a high reputation for skill and conscientiousness, he died on 2 May 1852, in his forty-ninth year.

Dalrymple contributed two valuable works to ophthalmic literature. The first was ‘The Anatomy of the Human Eye, being an account of the History, Progress, and Present State of Knowledge of the Organ of Vision in Man,’ London, 1834, 8vo; the other, in process of publication at his death, was ‘The Pathology of the Human Eye,’ London, 1851–2, in which the thirty-six folio coloured plates are of first-rate excellence. They were from water-colour drawings by Messrs. W. H. Kearny and Leonard, and engraved by W. Bagg. A list of Dalrymple's scientific papers is given in the Royal Society's ‘Catalogue of Scientific Papers,’ ii. 132.

[Times, 6 May 1852, quoted in Gent. Mag. 1852, i. 626; Medical Times, 8 May 1852, p. 471.]

G. T. B.

DALRYMPLE, Sir JOHN HAMILTON MACGILL, eighth Earl of Stair (1771–1853), fourth but eldest surviving son of Sir John Dalrymple [q. v.] of Cranstoun, author of ‘Memoirs of Great Britain,’ by his wife and cousin Elizabeth, only child and heiress of Thomas Hamilton Macgill of Fala and Oxenford, was born at Edinburgh 15 June 1771. He entered the army 28 July 1790 as ensign in the 100th foot, and with the rank of captain served in 1794 and 1795 in Flanders. As lieutenant-colonel he accompanied the expedition to Hanover in October 1805, and in 1807 he went to Zealand and was present at the siege of Copenhagen. He succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father, 26 Feb. 1810. In 1838 he attained the rank of general. While captain in the guards he sought a substitute for corporal punishment in the army, and explained his scheme to the Duke of Wellington. He was colonel of the 92nd foot from 1831 to 1843, and of the 46th foot from 1843 till death. On retiring from active connection with the army he interested himself warmly in politics, and in 1812 and 1818 contested Midlothian unsuccessfully in the whig interest. After the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832 he was returned by a majority of 69 over Sir George Clerk, an event which, according to Lord Cockburn, ‘struck a blow at the very heart of Scottish toryism’ (Memorials, i. 42). He succeeded to the earldom of Stair on the death of his kinsman, John William