Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/268

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fleet on the coast of China, and his attention to the sick and wounded at the capture of Canton 28–9 Dec. 1857 gained for him especial mention (London Gazette, 1858, p. 1024). He continued in active service until March 1872, when he was placed on the retired list. He was created C.B. 5 Feb. 1856, K.C.B. 13 March 1867, and awarded a good-service pension 11 April 1869. He held the Syrian medal, the Crimean medal with Sebastopol clasp, and the Turkish medal, was a knight of the Legion of Honour, and wore the order of the Medjidie of the fourth class. His death took place at the residence of his brother, Sir George Deas (Lord Deas), 32 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, 15 Jan. 1876, and he was buried in the Warriston cemetery, Edinburgh, on 19 Jan. He married in July 1860 Margaret, daughter of William Hepburn, who survived him.

[Times, 17 Jan. 1876, p. 6, and 8 Feb. p. 4; Annual Register, 1876, p. 129; Illustrated London News, 22 Jan. 1876, p. 95; O'Byrne (1861 ed.), p. 292.]

G. C. B.

DEAS, Sir GEORGE (1804–1887), Scotch judge, son of Francis Deas of Falkland, Fifeshire, was born in 1804. He acquired the rudiments of knowledge in various schools in Falkland, Milnathort in Kinross, and Perth, and in 1817 entered a writer's office in Perth. Having spent some time there, and also in the office of a writer in Cupar, he came to Edinburgh, where he pursued his legal studies, and also attended various classes at the university, obtaining prizes in logic, metaphysics, moral philosophy, and law. He was called to the Scotch bar in 1828, where he soon acquired considerable practice. In 1840 he received the appointment of advocate depute, an office to which he was reappointed in 1846, and which he held until 1850. He was sheriff of Ross and Cromarty 1850–1, solicitor-general 1851–2, and was created a permanent lord ordinary of the court of session, with the courtesy title of Lord Deas, and a judge of exchequer in May 1853, and a lord commissioner of justiciary in April 1854. He was knighted in 1858. As an advocate he was distinguished rather by strong logical faculty than by eloquence. He proved himself an acute and painstaking judge; and though he was seldom deterred from making a caustic remark by the fear of giving pain, his disposition is said to have been really kindly. He spoke with a broad Scotch accent. Deas married, first, in 1838, Margaret, only daughter of Sylvester Reid, and secondly, in 1857, the widow of Sir Benjamin Fonseca Outram, C.B., M.D. He died on 7 Feb. 1887 at his residence, 32 Heriot Row, Edinburgh.

[Times, 8 Feb. 1887; Journal of Jurisprudence, March 1887; Tennant, Fraser, and Murray's Cases in the Court of Session, 1850–1, ad init., 1852–3 ad init., 1853–4 ad init.; Irving's Dict. of Eminent Scotchmen.]

J. M. R.

DEASE, WILLIAM (1752?–1798), surgeon, was born about 1752 at Lisney, co. Cavan, of a good but impoverished family. He was sent to Dr. Clancy's school in Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine in that city and in Paris. He set up in practice in Dublin, and quickly gained repute as a surgeon, holding good hospital appointments. He took an active part in procuring a charter of incorporation for the Dublin surgeons, and became the first professor of surgery in the new college in 1785, and president of the college in 1789. He had a good practice, and was much esteemed for his virtues. He married Eliza, daughter of Sir Richard Dowdall. His death was in June 1798, under circumstances which no coroner's inquest would seem to have cleared up. According to one account he had made the mistake of opening an aneurism in a patient with a fatal result, taking it for an abscess, and was so overcome by the misadventure that he went to his study and opened his own femoral artery; according to another account, he died from an accidental wound of the femoral artery; and by a third account, from the rupture of an aneurism. In 1812 the Irish College of Surgeons procured his bust and placed it in the inner hall; in 1886 a statue of him, presented by his grandson, was placed in the principal hall of the college.

His writings are: 1. ‘Observations on Wounds of the Head,’ Dublin, 1776 (much enlarged, 1778). 2. ‘Different Methods of treating the Venereal Diseases,’ Dublin, 1779. 3. ‘Radical Cure of Hydrocele, and on Cutting for the Stone,’ Dublin, 1782. 4. ‘Observations on Midwifery,’ Dublin, 1783.

[Cameron's History of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, 1886; memoir prefixed to Dease's Radical Cure, &c., London, 1798.]

C. C.

DEASY, RICKARD (1812–1883), Irish judge, was the second son of Rickard Deasy of Clonakilty, county Cork, by his wife Mary Anne Caller. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated as B.A. in 1833, M.A. in 1847, and LL.B. and LL.D. in 1860. Deasy was called to the Irish bar in Michaelmas term 1835, and quickly acquired a very large practice. In 1849 he was made a queen's counsel, and at once became the leader in the equity courts and on the Munster circuit. At a bye election in April 1855 he was returned for county Cork, and he continued to sit for this constituency until