Rear-admiral) Elliot on the Newfoundland station, and from 1792 to 1794 commanded the Lion, taking out to China Lord Macartney and his embassy [see Macartney, George, Earl of Macartney], for which service he was rewarded with the honour of knighthood. In November 1794 he was appointed to the Triumph, one of the ships with Cornwallis in his celebrated retreat, 17 June 1795 [see Cornwallis, Sir William]. During the mutiny at the Nore he hoisted a broad pennant on board the Neptune, one of the ships commissioned for the defence of the Thames, and continued to command her as one of the Channel fleet until his promotion to the rank of rear-admiral on 14 Feb. 1799. He had no further service, but became vice-admiral on 23 April 1804, and admiral on 25 Oct. 1809. He died at Hambledon in Hampshire on 21 June 1814.
[Gent. Mag. 1814, vol. lxxxiv. pt. ii. p. 289.]
GOWER, FOOTE (1726?–1780), antiquary, son of the Rev. Foote Gower, M.A. and M.D., a physician at Chester, was born at Chester about 1726. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, 15 March 1743–1744, aged 18, and took his degrees of B.A. in 1747, M.A. in 1750, M.B. in 1755, and M.D. in 1757. He was rector of Chignall St. James and Mashbury, near Chelmsford, Essex, from June 1761 until about 1777, and he is stated to have practised medicine at Chelmsford, but this is doubtful. He made extensive collections for a history of Cheshire, and in 1771 printed ‘A Sketch of the Materials for a new History of Cheshire,’ London, 4to. This was anonymous, and was signed ‘a Fellow of the Antiquary Society.’ His intention was to issue his work in folio form at a subscription of ten guineas; but the project, although it seems to have received much encouragement, went no further than the reissue of his ‘proposals’ in 1772, with an additional ‘address to the public.’ He made collections also for a history of Essex, and a new edition of Horsley's ‘Britannia Romana.’ After his death, at Bath on 27 May 1780, his voluminous papers passed into the hands of Dr. Markham of Whitechapel, and subsequently the project was taken up by Dr. J. Wilkinson and William Latham, who, in 1800, republished the ‘Sketch’ with their own additions, but they in turn failed to publish, and the manuscripts were disposed of by auction, some going to the British Museum and some to the Bodleian.
He married a sister of John Strutt, M.P. His son, Charles Gower, M.D. (died 1822), was author of ‘Hints and Auxiliaries to Medicine,’ 1819. His youngest son was Richard Hall Gower [q. v.], naval architect.
[Palatine Note-book, ii. 120, 202; Lysons's Cheshire, 466; Ormerod's Cheshire, 1819, i. 11; Foster's Alumni Oxon. ii. 546; Munk's Roll of Coll. of Physicians, 1878, ii. 470 (as to Charles Gower); information from Rev. B. C. Barnes.]
GOWER, GEORGE (fl. 1575–1585), sergeant-painter, may with some probability be identified with George Gower, son of George Gower, and grandson of Sir John Gower of Stittenham, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Goldsborough, and was ancestor of the present ducal house of Sutherland (Glover, Visitation of Yorkshire, ed. by J. Foster). At Milton House, Northamptonshire, the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, there is preserved a portrait of him (wrongly named Thomas Gower) painted by himself in 1579, which was engraved by J. Basire, and published in Gough's ‘Parochial History of Castor’ (supplement to Rev. Kenneth Gibson's Commentary upon Part of the Fifth Journey of Antoninus through Britain) in 1819. The coat-of-arms on the picture leads to his identification, and the inscription informs us that Gower took to painting in middle life after a somewhat unprofitable youth. In 1584 he was sergeant-painter to the queen, and received a patent, granting him a monopoly of the privilege to ‘make or cause to be made all and all maner of purtraicts and pictuers of our person phisiognomy and proporcon of our bodye in oyle cullers upon bourdes or canvas, or to graue the same in copper, or to cutt the same in woode or to printe the same beinge cutt in copper or woode or otherwise,’ &c., with the exception of Nicholas Hilliard, who was allowed to make portraits of the queen ‘in small compasse in lymnynge only and not otherwise’ (Brit. Mus. Cott. Chart, iv. 26). Gower probably did not hold the office long, as shortly afterwards it was in other hands.
[Notes and Queries, 1st ser. vi. 237; Gent. Mag. 1807, lxxvii. 511; authorities quoted in the text.]
GOWER, HENRY (d. 1347), bishop of St. David's, was sprung from a noble family (Fœdera, ii. 747) settled probably in the English-speaking peninsula of Gower, not far from Swansea. He was educated at Oxford, and became master of arts, doctor of both civil and canon law (ib.), and fellow of Merton College (Brodrick, Memorials of Merton College, p. 177, Oxford Hist. Soc.) At the end of 1322 he appears for a short time as chancellor of the university, and he again acted in that office in 1323 (Wood, Fasti
