Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/192

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Raithby
186
Ralegh

grated to Edinburgh and continued the study till 1812. Returning to Glasgow, he acted as clerk in the Royal Infirmary from 1812 to 1814. In May 1814 he went to Paris to work in the hospitals, and was a spectator of the commotion caused by the news of Bonaparte's return from Elba. He became acquainted with Roux, Dupuytren, Orfila, and other distinguished members of the French medical and surgical schools, which had outrun the British in some points of practice. In 1815 he returned to Glasgow, travelling by way of Metz through Germany and Belgium, crossing the field of Waterloo some weeks before the battle. In Glasgow he soon acquired a large practice. As a lecturer he taught the institutes of medicine in Glasgow University from 1832 to 1839, and the practice of medicine from 1839 to 1841. He had graduated M.D. at Glasgow in April 1833, and in 1841 was appointed to the chair of forensic medicine and medical jurisprudence in the university. He thenceforth practised as a consulting physician with much success. In 1862 he resigned his chair, and on 19 Nov. 1873 the university conferred on him the degree of LL.D. on the installation of Mr. Disraeli as rector of the university. While possessing extensive knowledge and skill as a medical practitioner, Rainy was a keen theologian, and at the time of the Scottish disruption he took a leading part on the side of the free church. He died in Glasgow on 6 Aug. 1876. On 30 Nov. 1818 he married Barbara, daughter of Captain Robert Gordon of Invercarron. She died on 8 July 1854. His eldest son, Robert Rainy, D.D. (b. 1826), principal of the New College, Edinburgh, was in 1887 moderator of the Free Church General Assembly. His second son, George (1832–1869), M.D. of Glasgow, was surgeon to the eye infirmary there, and lecturer in the university in 1868.

[Scott's Fasti, v. 334; Times, 18 Aug. 1876; Scotsman, 8 Aug. 1876; Irving's Eminent Scotsmen; British Medical Journal, August 1876; information received from Principal Rainy and Miss Christina Rainy.]

G. S-h.

RAITHBY, JOHN (1766–1826), lawyer, born in 1766, was eldest son of Edmund Raithby of Edenham, Lincolnshire. On 26 Jan. 1795 he was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn, and was subsequently called to the bar. He practised in the court of chancery. His legal writings obtained for him a commissionership of bankruptcy; he was also nominated a sub-commissioner on the public records. Raithby died at the Grove, Highgate, on 31 Aug. 1826, leaving a widow.

Raithby published anonymously, in 1798, ‘The Study and Practice of the Law considered,’ 8vo, an ably written treatise, for some time attributed to Sir James Mackintosh. An American edition appeared at Portland, Maine, in 1806, and the second English edition was issued at London in 1816, with the author's name. With Sir Thomas Edlyne Tomlins, Raithby issued a new edition of the ‘Statutes at Large,’ from Magna Charta to the Union, 41 Geo. III, 10 vols. 4to, 1811 (also in 20 vols. 8vo, 1811). Tomlins co-operated in the edition down to 49 Geo. III, when he relinquished the task to Raithby and Nicholas Simons. Raithby compiled a useful ‘Index’ to the work, ‘from Magna Charta to 49 Geo. III,’ which appeared in 1814, in 1 vol. 4to and in 3 vols. 8vo. He likewise compiled alphabetical and chronological indexes to the ‘Statutes of the Realm,’ which were published by the record commissioners in 1824 and 1828, folio.

Raithby wrote also:

  1. ‘The Law and Principle of Money considered,’ 8vo, London, 1811.
  2. ‘Henry Bennet: a Novel,’ 3 vols. 12mo, London.

[Gent. Mag. 1826, pt. ii. p. 282; Allibone's Dict. of Authors, ii. 1726.]

G. G.

RALEGH, Sir WALTER (1552?–1618), military and naval commander and author, was born about 1552 at Hayes or Hayes Barton, near Budleigh Salterton, South Devonshire (for description of birthplace see Trans. of Devonshire Association, xxi. 312–20). His father, Walter Ralegh (1496?–1581), a country gentleman, was originally settled at Fardell, near Plymouth, where he owned property at his death; he removed about 1520 to Hayes, where he leased an estate, and spent the last years of his long life at Exeter. He narrowly escaped death in the western rebellion of 1549, was churchwarden of East Budleigh in 1561, and is perhaps the ‘Walter Rawley’ who represented Wareham in the parliament of 1558. He was buried in the church of St. Mary Major, Exeter, on 23 Feb. 1580–1. He married thrice: first, about 1518, Joan, daughter of John Drake of Exmouth, and probably first cousin of Sir Francis Drake; secondly, a daughter of Darrell of London; and, thirdly, after 1548, Katharine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne of Modbury, and widow of Otho Gilbert (d. 18 Feb. 1547) of Compton, near Dartmouth.

By his first wife the elder Ralegh had two sons: George, who is said to have furnished a ship to meet the Spanish armada in 1588, and was buried at Withycombe Ralegh on