Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/295

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adjutant-general of the force, under General Mathews, that surrendered at Bednore (Nagur) on 28 April 1783, and was carried off prisoner by Tippoo Sultaun (cf. Mill, Hist. of India, ed. Wilson, iv. 267–9). When Tippoo released the prisoners in 1784, Oakes was appointed by the Madras government captain-commandant of a battalion of sepoys (10 June 1784), and, when the battalion was disbanded, returned to Bombay to command the grenadiers of the 2nd Bombay Europeans, whence he was transferred to the 12th Bombay native infantry in September 1788, and took the field with that corps in 1790, serving first as quarter-master-general, and afterwards as commissary of supplies. He was with his battalion at the sieges of Cananore and Seringapatam in 1790, was detached with a separate force to Kolapore in Malabar, and was afterwards with the troops under Major Cappage in October 1791. In 1792 he was appointed deputy adjutant-general of the Bombay army, received the style of adjutant-general in 1796, and returned home on sick furlough in 1788, having attained the rank of major on 6 May 1795, and lieutenant-colonel on 8 Jan. 1796. He went out again in 1802, and was appointed colonel of the 7th Bombay native infantry, but was compelled to return home through ill-health. He went to India once more in 1807 as military auditor-general at Bombay, but was again obliged to return home. He became a major-general on 25 July 1810, a lieutenant-general on 4 June 1814, and succeeded his brother as second baronet in 1822. Henry Oakes married, on 9 Dec. 1792, Dorothea, daughter of General George Bowles of Mount Prospect, co. Cork, by whom he had four sons and three daughters. She died on 24 May 1837. Oakes, whose constitution had been completely undermined in India, was subject to fits of insanity, in one of which he destroyed himself. His death took place at his residence at Mitcham, Surrey, on 1 Nov. 1827.

[Burke's Baronetage, under ‘Oakes;’ Gent. Mag. 1797 i. 254 (Lieutenant-colonel Oakes), 1822 pt. ii. p. 373 (Sir Hildebrand Oakes), 1827 pt. ii. p. 560; Philippart's Roy. Mil. Cal. 1820, ii. 191–2; War Office Corresp. in Public Record Office relating to Corsica, Portugal, Malta, &c.; Mill's Hist. of India, ed. Wilson, vols. iv. and v. for particulars of campaigns in which Henry Oakes was employed.]

H. M. C.

OAKES, JOHN WRIGHT (1820–1887), landscape-painter, was born on 9 July 1820, at Sproston House, near Middlewich, Cheshire, which had been in the possession of his family for several generations. He was educated in Liverpool, and studied art under John Bishop in the school attached to the Liverpool Mechanics' Institution. His earliest works were fruit-pieces. These he exhibited in 1839 and the following years at the Liverpool Academy, of which he became a member, and afterwards honorary secretary for several years.

About 1843 Oakes began painting landscapes from nature, and in 1847 the first picture exhibited by him in London, ‘Nant Frangcon, Carnarvonshire,’ appeared at the British Institution, and was followed in 1848 by ‘On the River Greta, Keswick,’ at the Royal Academy. He continued to send pictures, chiefly of Welsh mountain, moorland, and coast scenery, to these exhibitions, as well as to the Society of British Artists, Dudley Gallery, Portland Gallery, and elsewhere, and in 1859 came to reside in London. He painted also in water-colours, and in 1874 was elected an associate of the Institute of Painters in Water-Colours, but resigned this position in 1875. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1876, and an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1883. During the last six years of his life ill-health greatly interfered with the practice of his art. He still, however, exhibited annually at the Royal Academy, where a picture entitled ‘The Warren’ appeared the year after his death. Among his best works were ‘A Carnarvonshire Glen,’ ‘A Solitary Pool,’ ‘Glen Derry,’ ‘Malldraeth Sands,’ ‘Aberffraw Bay,’ ‘Marchlyn Mawr,’ ‘Linn of Muick,’ ‘Dunnottar Castle,’ ‘The Bass Rock,’ ‘The Fallow Field,’ ‘The Border Countrie,’ ‘The Dee Sands,’ and ‘Dirty Weather on the East Coast.’

Oakes died at his residence, Leam House, Addison Road, Kensington, on 8 July 1887, and was buried in Brompton cemetery. The South Kensington Museum has an oil painting by him entitled ‘Disturbed,’ an effect of early spring twilight. ‘A North Devon Glen’ is in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and ‘Early Spring’ in the Glasgow Corporation galleries.

[Times, 13 July 1887; Athenæum, 1887, ii. 89; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves and Armstrong, 1886–9, ii. 768; Exhibition Catalogues of the Royal Academy, British Institution (Living Artists), Society of British Artists, and Liverpool Academy, 1839–1888.]

R. E. G.

OAKES, URIAN (1631?–1681), New England divine, born in England in 1631 or 1632, went out when a child with his father to Massachusetts. He graduated at Harvard College in 1649, and ‘when a lad of small stature published a little parcel of