Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/96

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Dillon-Lee
90
Dillwyn

man-of-war brig of twenty guns and one hundred and sixty men. In this service he was severely wounded, and his gallant conduct was acknowledged by the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd's by the presentation of a sword valued at one hundred guineas. After obtaining his post commission (21 March 1808) he served at Walcheren, on the coasts of Portugal and Spain, at Newfoundland, in China, India, and finally in the Mediterranean, in command of the Russell, 74, when he rendered much service to the Spanish cause. He obtained flag rank on 9 Nov. 1846. He was nominated K.C.H. on 13 Jan. 1835, on 24 June following was knighted by William IV at St. James's Palace, and in 1839 received the good-service pension. He was gazetted a vice-admiral of the blue on 5 March 1853, and of the red in 1857, and died on 9 Sept. 1857, leaving in manuscript an account of his professional career, with a description of the many scenes in which he had been engaged.

[O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict. p. 290; Gent. Mag. October 1857, p. 460; Times, 22 Sept. 1857, p. 12.]

G. C. B.

DILLON-LEE, HENRY AUGUSTUS, thirteenth Viscount Dillon (1777–1832), writer, eldest son of Charles, twelfth viscount Dillon, K.P., by the Hon. Henrietta-Maria Phipps, only daughter of Constantine, first lord Mulgrave, was born at Brussels on 28 Oct. 1777. On 1 Oct. 1794 he obtained the rank of colonel in the Irish brigade, and on a vacancy occurring in 1799 he was returned to parliament for the borough of Harwich. At the last general election of 1802 he was chosen one of the knights for the county of Mayo, and was re-elected in 1806, 1807, and 1812, and continued a member of the House of Commons till 9 Nov. 1813, when he succeeded to his father's title. He became colonel of the Duke of York's Irish regiment (101st foot) in August 1806.

Dillon inherited through his grandmother, Lady Charlotte Lee, daughter of the second of the extinct Earls of Lichfield, the estate of Dytchley, with its beautiful hall built on the site of the mansion once occupied by Sir Henry Lee of Dytchley. He married in 1807 Henrietta Browne, sister of the first Lord Oranmore, by whom he had five sons and two daughters. He died, after much suffering, on 24 July 1832, at Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, London. Dillon published the following works:

  1. ‘A Short View of the Catholic Question,’ 1801, a pamphlet advocating the catholic claims.
  2. ‘A Letter to the Noblemen and Gentlemen who composed the Deputation of the Catholics of Ireland,’ 1805.
  3. ‘A Commentary on the Military Establishments and Defence of the British Empire,’ 2 vols. 8vo, 1811–12.
  4. An edition of ‘The Tactics of Ælian,’ with notes, 4to, 1814.
  5. ‘A Commentary on the Policy of Nations,’ London, 2 vols. 8vo, 1814.
  6. ‘A Discourse upon the Theory of Legitimate Government,’ London, 12mo, 1817.
  7. ‘Rosaline de Vere, a Romance,’ 2 vols. post 8vo.
  8. ‘The Life and Opinions of Sir Richard Maltravers, an English Gentleman of the 17th Century,’ London, 1822, 2 vols. 8vo, a fiction in which the author endeavoured to show the difference of manners at the time in which he lived and those of which he wrote, a comparison not very flattering to the Georgian era.
  9. ‘Eccelino da Romano,’ a poem, 1828, 2 vols. 8vo.

[Lodge's Genealogical Peerage; Gent. Mag. 1832, vol. cii. pt. ii. p. 175; notice on fly-leaf of Life and Opinions of Sir Richard Maltravers; Allibone's Dict. of English Literature.]

R. H.

DILLWYN, LEWIS WESTON (1778–1855), naturalist, son of William Dillwyn of Higham Lodge, Walthamstow, descended from an old Breconshire family, was born at Ipswich in 1778. He received his early education at a Friends' school at Tottenham, his father being a member of that body. At this school he became acquainted with his lifelong friend, Mr. Joseph Woods, with whom he was sent to Folkestone on account of his then weak health. In 1798 he went to Dover and there began his study of plants, the first-fruits of which were a list of plants observed by him, read before the Linnean Society in March 1801. At this time he was living at Walthamstow, but in 1802 his father purchased the Cambrian pottery at Swansea, placing his son at the head, although it was 1803 before he settled in that town. His principal botanical work was begun to be published in 1802, the ‘Natural History of British Confervæ,’ while in 1805, the joint production of himself and Mr. Dawson Turner of Yarmouth, the ‘Botanist's Guide through England and Wales’ was published in two small octavo volumes. His favourite pursuits were turned to good account in business, and the porcelain of his manufacture soon became celebrated for the true and spirited paintings on it of butterflies, flowers, birds, and shells, besides the beauty of the material itself. It attained its greatest renown about 1814, after which its production was abandoned for the ordinary earthenware, the staple product of the works.

In 1809 he completed his ‘British Confervæ,’ and soon afterwards he married the daughter of John Llewellyn of Penllergare