HUSSEY, PHILIP (d. 1782), portrait-painter, born at Cork, began life as a sailor, and was shipwrecked no less than five times. He drew the figure-heads and stern ornaments of vessels, and eventually set up in Dublin as a portrait-painter, painting full-length portraits with some success. He was a good musician, and was skilled as a botanist and florist. His house was the rendezvous of many leading men of art and letters in Dublin. He died at an advanced age in 1782 at his house in Earl Street, Dublin.
[Pasquin's Artists of Ireland; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
HUSSEY, RICHARD (1715?–1770), politician, born probably in 1715, though Polwhele (Reminiscences, ii. 135) fixes the date two years earlier, was the son of John Hussey, town clerk (1722-37) of Truro, Cornwall, by his wife Miss Gregor. On 17 Oct. 1730 he matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, but did not graduate; and in 1742 was called to the bar at the Middle Temple (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886, ii. 720). He represented St. Mawes, Cornwall, in the parliament of 1761-8, and East Looe in the same county in that of 1768, retaining his seat until his death. After the accession of George III he received a silk gown (Foss, Lives of the Judges, viii. 222), and was appointed attorney-general to the queen. He was also auditor of Greenwich Hospital, counsel to the admiralty and navy, and counsel to the East India Company. In 1768 he was chosen auditor of the duchy of Cornwall (Royal Kalendar, 1769, p.88). As a politician Hussey won the respect of both parties by his integrity, fairness, and courtesy. Chatham thought highly of him (Stanhope, Hist. of England, v. Append, p. x). Lord Camden was his friend. Horace Walpole is never tired of eulogising his blameless life and talents as a debater. In the debates on Wilkes's complaint of breach of privilege he took a prominent part, especially in the debate on 24 Nov. 1763, when, says Walpole (Letters, ed. Cunningham, iv. 136), he 'was against the court, and spoke with great spirit and true whig spirit.' In the debate on the Stamp Act on 21 Feb. 1766 he advocated its repeal as an innovation upon what the colonies considered their usages and customs (Correspondence of Lord Chatham, ii. 394). However, in the debate arising out of the Massachusetts Bay petition on 26 Jan. 1769, he expressed himself strongly in favour of laying an internal tax upon America as the only practical way of forcing that country to own the supreme power of Great Britain (Cavendish, Debates, i.197-8). On the defeat of the ministry in January 1770 Hussey resigned the attorney-generalship to the queen (Walpole, Letters, v. 220). He died at Truro in the following September (Gent. Mag. 1770, 441).
[Correspondence of Lord Chatham, iii. Ill; Walpole's Last Ten Years of George II, 1832, i.375; Walpole's Memoirs of George III, 1845, i.326, 370-3, 377, ii. 60-1, 272, 279-80, 301, 379, iii. 161, 203, 208 n., 315, iv. 49-50; Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham, iii. 453, iv. 136, v. 220; Cavendish's Debates, i. 197-8, 246-7, 403; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. i. 260-1.]
HUSSEY, ROBERT (1801–1856), professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford, born on 7 Oct. 1801, was fourth son of William Hussey, a member of an old Kentish family, who was for forty-nine years rector of Sandhurst, near Hawkhurst in Kent. (His eldest sister, Mrs. Sutherland, gave to the Bodleian Library in 1837 the magnificent collection of historical prints and drawings, in sixty-one folio volumes, illustrating the works of Clarendon and Burnet.) Hussey was for a time at Rochester grammar school; but in 1814 he was sent to Westminster School, in 1816 became a king's scholar, and in 1821 was elected to Christ Church, Oxford. There he resided for the remainder of his life. He obtained a double first-class in the B.A. examination, Michaelmas 1824, and proceeded M. A. in 1827 and B.D. in 1837. After a few years spent in private tuition, he was appointed one of the college tutors, and held that office until he became censor in 1835. He was appointed select preacher before the university in 1831 and again in 1846. He was proctor in 1836, in which year he was an unsuccessful candidate for the head-mastership of Harrow. In 1838 he was appointed one of the classical examiners at Oxford, and from 1841 to 1843 was one of the preachers at Whitehall. In 1842 he relinquished his college duties on his appointment to the newly founded regius professorship of ecclesiastical history. As the canonry of Christ Church, which is now attached to the professorship, was not then vacant, an annual payment of 300l. was made by the university.
The change of employment was thoroughly congenial. For the benefit of the students attending his lectures he edited the histories of Socrates (1844), Evagrius (1844), Bæda (1846), and Sozomen (3 vols. finished after his death, 1860). In a volume of 'Sermons, mostly Academical' (Oxford, 1849), Hussey
