Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/295

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in the ‘Catholic Miscellany’ for September 1825. There is a fine full-length portrait of him in the refectory at Ushaw.

[Gillow's Chapels at Ushaw, with an historical introduction (Durham, 1885); Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Brady's Episcopal Succession, iii. 268; Douay Diaries, p. 71; Oliver's Catholic Religion in Cornwall, p. 40; Petre's Colleges on the Continent, p. 4; Amherst's Hist. of Catholic Emancipation, i. 169, ii. 40, 54, 81, 127, 132.]

T. C.

GIBSON, WILLIAM, D.D. (1808–1867), Irish presbyterian divine, son of James Gibson, a merchant in Ballymena, co. Antrim, was born there 8 May 1808. He attended school in his native town and in the Belfast Academical Institution, where he took the medal for classics in 1829. His collegiate training was obtained partly in Belfast and partly in Edinburgh. In 1833 he was licensed, and in 1834 ordained minister of First Ballybay, co. Monaghan. In 1835 a pamphlet which he wrote on ‘The Position of the Church of Ireland and the Duty of Presbyterians in reference to it’ had a wide circulation. In 1840 he became colleague to the Rev. Samuel Hanna, D.D., in Rosemary Street Church, Belfast. In 1842 he was the chief means of establishing the ‘Banner of Ulster,’ a newspaper devoted principally to the interests of Irish presbyterianism. In 1847 he was appointed professor of Christian ethics in the assembly's college, Belfast. In 1859 he became moderator of the general assembly. He died suddenly in June 1867. His chief work was ‘The Year of Grace, a History of the Ulster Revival of 1859,’ Edinburgh, 1850.

[Personal knowledge; obituary notices.]

T. H.

GIBSON, WILLIAM SIDNEY (1814–1871), miscellaneous writer, born at Parson's Green, Fulham, in 1814, was for some years on the staff of a Carlisle newspaper. He entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar by that society in 1843. The same year he was appointed registrar of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne district court of bankruptcy. When the Bankruptcy Act of 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 71) abolished this among other like courts, Gibson retired on a pension, and devoted himself entirely to antiquarian and literary studies. He died at the Grosvenor Hotel, London, 3 Jan. 1871, and was interred in the disused burial-ground of the Old Priory, Tynemouth, ‘for which a special permission had been obtained from the home office during the lifetime of the deceased.’ He was an honorary M.A. of Durham, and a fellow of the London Society of Antiquaries and many other learned societies.

Gibson wrote: 1. ‘The Certainties of Geology,’ 1840. 2. ‘Prize Essay on the History and Antiquities of Highgate,’ 1842 (written for a Highgate society). 3. ‘The History of the Monastery founded at Tynemouth in the Diocese of Durham,’ 2 vols., 1846–7 (a review of this, which originally appeared in the ‘Newcastle Guardian,’ was republished, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1846). 4. ‘An Essay on the Filial Duties,’ 1848. 5. ‘A Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Amendment of the Law of Bankruptcy,’ 1848. 6. ‘Descriptive and Historical Notices of some remarkable Northumbrian Castles, Churches, and Antiquities, in a Series of Visits to the ruined Priory of Finchale, the Abbey Church of Hexham, &c., with Biographical Notices of Eminent Persons’ (three series, 1848–54; the second series entitled ‘Dilston Hall,’ &c.). 7. ‘Remarks on the Mediæval Writers on English History, intended as a popular Sketch of the Advantages and Pleasures derivable from Monastic Literature,’ 1848. 8. ‘Marvels of the Globe,’ two lectures, 1856. 9. ‘Lectures and Essays,’ two series, 1858–63. 10. ‘A Memoir of Northumberland, descriptive of its Scenery, Monuments, and History,’ 1860, and, in a different form, 1862. 11. ‘Descriptive and Historical Guide to Tynemouth, with Notices of North Shields, &c.,’ Tynemouth and North Shields, 1861. 12. ‘A Memoir of Lord Lyndhurst,’ 1866; new edition, 1869. Gibson also wrote ‘A Memoir of the Life of Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham,’ articles for Colburn's ‘New Monthly Magazine’ and other periodicals, and was an early contributor to ‘Notes and Queries.’

[Colburn's New Monthly Magazine, April 1871; Solicitors' Journal and Reporter, 14 Jan. 1871, p. 260; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. vii. 48, xi. 28.]

F. W-t.

GIDDY, DAVIES. [See Gilbert.]

GIDEON, SAMPSON (1699–1762), capitalist and financier, was of Jewish race. His father, Rowland Gideon (d. 1720), a West India merchant, who was a freeman of the city of London and on the court of the Painter Stainers' Company (admitted 17 Feb. 1697), had changed his name from the Portuguese name of Abudiente on settling in England. Sampson Gideon was born in London in 1699, and began business when only twenty years old with a capital of 1,500l., which in less than two years had increased to 7,900l. He was admitted a sworn broker in 1729, with a capital of 25,000l. His fortune mounted up rapidly, and was invested mainly in landed estates, which at his death in 1762 were valued at 580,000l.