Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/446

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Haggart
438
Haghe

two years afterwards commissary of Surrey in the same diocese. In 1847 he received the appointment of chancellor of Manchester from James Prince Lee, the first bishop of the diocese. As an advocate he was cautious and of sound judgment, and as a man he was liberal, just, and generous. He edited the following useful works: 1. ‘Reports of Cases argued in the Consistory Court of London, containing the Judgments of Sir W. Scott,’ 1822, 2 vols. 2. ‘Reports of Cases argued in the Court of Admiralty during the time of Lord Stowell,’ 1822–40, 3 vols. 3. ‘A Report of the Judgment of Dew v. Clarke,’ 1826. 4. ‘Reports of Cases argued in the Ecclesiastical Courts at Doctors' Commons and in the High Court of Delegates,’ 1829–32, 4 vols. 5. ‘Digest of Cases argued in the Arches and Prerogative Courts of Canterbury and contained in the Reports of J. Haggard,’ 1835. Haggard died at Brighton 31 Oct. 1856.

[Gent. Mag. 1856, pt. ii. p. 784; Times, 6 Nov. 1856, p. 5; Manchester Guardian, 4 Nov. 1856, p. 3; information from Edward Haggard, esq.]

G. C. B.

HAGGART, DAVID (1801–1821), thief and homicide, was born at Golden Acre, near Edinburgh, 24 June 1801. A gamekeeper's son, he was taken twice as a gillie to the highlands, received a good plain education, but had already begun to commit petty thefts when, in July 1813, he enlisted as a drummer in the Norfolk militia, then stationed at Edinburgh Castle. George Borrow [q. v.], who probably saw him in Edinburgh, gave a very fanciful sketch of him in 'Lavengro.' Borrow's 'wild, red-headed lad of some fifteen years, his frame lithy as an antelope's, but with prodigious breadth of chest,' was then only twelve years old. Next year, when the regiment left for England, David got his discharge, and after nine months' more schooling was bound a millwright's apprentice. The firm was bankrupt in April 1817, and having no employment he soon became a regular pickpocket—burglar sometimes, and shoplifter haunting every fair and racecourse between Durham and Aberdeen. His luck varied, but was never better than during the first four months, when he and an Irish comrade shared more than three hundred guineas. Six times imprisoned, he four times broke out of gaol; and on 10 Oct. 1820, in his escape from Dumfries tolbooth, he felled the turnkey with a stone, and killed him. He got over to Ireland, and was sailing at one time for America, at another for France, but in March 1821 was arrested for theft at Clough fair, recognised, and brought, heavily ironed, from Kilmainham to Dumfries, and thence to Edinburgh. There he was tried on 11 June 1821, and hanged on 18 July. Twelve days before the trial he was visited in prison by George Combe [q. v.], the phrenologist, and between the trial and his execution he partly wrote, partly dictated, an autobiography, which was published by his agent, with Combe's phrenological notes as an appendix, and Haggart's own comments. It is a curious picture of criminal life, the best, and seemingly the most faithful, of its kind, and possesses also some linguistic value, as being mainly written in the Scottish thieves' cant, which contains a good many genuine Romany words. Lord Cockburn, writing from recollection in 1848, declares the whole book to be 'a tissue of absolute lies, not of mistakes, or of exaggerations, or of fancies, but of sheer and intended lies. And they all had one object, to make him appear a greater villain than he really was.' On the other hand, the contemporaneous account of the trial, so far as it goes, bears out Haggart's narrative ; Cockburn is certainly wrong in describing Haggart as 'about twenty-five,' and in stating that the portrait prefixed professed to be 'by his own hand.'

[Life of David Haggart, written by himself; Borrow's Lavengro, chaps, vii. and viii.; Edinb. Mag. August and September 1821 ; Lord Cockburn's Circuit Journeys, p. 339.]

F. H. G.

HAGHE, LOUIS (1806–1885), lithographer and water-colour painter, born at Tournay in Belgium on 17 March 1806, was son of an architect there, from whom as a child he received instruction in drawing, with a view to practising the same profession. He also attended a drawing academy at Tournay, and from ten to fifteen years of age studied at the college there. Haghe's right hand was deformed from his birth, and his works were executed entirely with the left hand. On leaving college he received lessons in water-colour painting from Chevalier de la Barrière, a French emigrant. The latter, though not a lithographer himself, set up a lithographic press at Tournay in conjunction with M. Dewasme, and Haghe was invited to assist. Haghe made drawings for a series of 'Vues Pittoresques de la Belgique,' prepared by J. B. De Jonghe, the landscape-painter, for production at this press, and on the return of De la Barrière to France, helped De Jonghe to carry the work through. He was then only seventeen. A young Englishman, named Maxwell, who came to study lithography under De la Barrière, but was instructed by Haghe, persuaded Haghe to go with him to England. This Haghe did, and thenceforth England was his home.