[Funeral Sermon by Obadiah Hughes, 1743; Sketch of the Life, in Protestant Dissenters' Magazine, 1794, pp. 297 sq. 345 sq. 403 sq.; Brief Memoir and Say Papers in Monthly Repository, 1809–10; Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1814, iv. 91 sq. (portrait); Browne's Hist. Congr. Norf. and Suff. 1877, pp. 241, 391, 521, 529, 538; Christian Reformer, 1834, p. 816; Jones's Bunhill Memorials, 1849, p. 242. For Gyles Say, Memoir in Monthly Repository, 1809, pp. 475 sq. (cf. pp. 7–8); Calamy's Continuation, 1727, ii. 517.]
SAY, WILLIAM (1604–1665?), regicide, born in 1604, was probably second son of William Say of Ickenham, Middlesex, by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Edward Fenner, one of the judges of the king's bench (see pedigree in Harl. Soc. v. 252). He matriculated at University College, Oxford, 9 Dec. 1619, aged 15, and graduated B.A. in June 1623. He entered at the Middle Temple in 1631, becoming a bencher twenty-three years later. He took up the parliamentary cause, and in 1646 obtained a grant of the sequestered lands of John, lord Abergavenny, receiving the profits of them up to 1655 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. pp. 95 b, 122 b). On 12 April 1647 he was returned to the Long parliament as member for Camelford, Cornwall, in the place of William Glenvill, disabled to sit (Return of Members, i. 486). He was one of the members of the high court which tried Charles, and was required to peruse the proceedings before they were presented to the house (Cal. State Papers, 1649, p. 353). He attended the trial regularly (Noble), and signed the death warrant (Gardiner, Civil War, iv. 309). In May 1649 he was appointed one of the council for the Commonwealth on the trial of John Lilburne [q. v.] (Council Book, Record Office, I. lxii. 249) and on 11 Feb. 1650 was admitted to the council of state (Commons' Journals; Whitelocke, Memorials, p. 488). He subsequently sat on numerous committees up to 1653. In November 1659 he with Ludlow and a few others attempted to reconcile the army and parliament (Ludlow, Memoirs, ed. Firth, ii. 145). He was nominated one of the committee of safety, 30 Dec. 1659 (Commons' Journals, viii. 800; Parl. Hist. xx. 36). On 13 Jan. 1659–60 Speaker Lenthall was allowed ten days' absence during illness, and during this interim Say filled his place (Commons' Journals, viii. 811; Whitelocke, Memorials, p. 693). At the Restoration he was exempted from the act of indemnity by a vote of the House of Commons, 30 May 1660 (Ludlow, Memoirs, ii. 275). He escaped to the continent, and in October 1662 joined Ludlow at Lausanne (ib. ii. 343), but after some stay left to seek a place of greater safety in Germany (ib. p. 373). In 1665 he was at Amsterdam, and in the following year was concerting in Holland a movement against England (ib. ii. 373, 391). He probably died soon afterwards.
[Authorities as in text; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Manning's Speakers, pp. 340–346; Noble's Regicides, ii. 164 sqq.]
SAY, WILLIAM (1768–1834), engraver, son of William Say, a Norfolk land-steward, was born at Lakenham, near Norwich, in 1768, and, being left an orphan when five years old, was brought up by his maternal aunt. At about the age of twenty he came to London, and obtained instruction from James Ward (1769–1859) [q. v.], who was then practising mezzotint engraving. Say became an able and extremely industrious engraver, working entirely in mezzotint, and between 1801 and 1834 executed no fewer than 335 plates, a large proportion of which are portraits of contemporary celebrities, from pictures by Beechey, Hoppner, Lawrence, Northcote, Reynolds, and others. His subject-plates include Correggio's ‘Holy Family with St. Catherine,’ Murillo's ‘Spanish peasant boys,’ Raphael's ‘Madonna di San Sisto,’ Hilton's ‘Raising of Lazarus,’ one of Reynolds's two groups of members of the Dilettanti Society, and various fancy and historical compositions by H. Thomson, H. Fradelle, A. E. Chalon, and others. Say was one of the engravers employed by Turner upon his ‘Liber Studiorum,’ for which he executed eleven of the published and two of the unpublished plates. He also engraved two of the plates in Turner's ‘River Scenery of England.’ These, with a fine view of Lincoln Cathedral after Mackenzie, constitute his chief work in landscape. In 1807 he was appointed engraver to the Duke of Gloucester. In 1820 Say scraped a small portrait of Queen Caroline after Devis, which was the first attempt made in mezzotint on steel; twelve hundred impressions were taken from the plate. Say died at his residence in Weymouth Street, London, on 24 Aug. 1834, and his stock of plates and prints was sold in the following July. By his wife, whose maiden name was Francis, he had one son, mentioned below, and three daughters. Of these the eldest, Mary Anne, became the wife of John Buonarotti Papworth [q. v.], and the youngest, Leonora, married William Adams Nicholson [q. v.] An almost complete set of Say's works, in various states, was presented to the British Museum by his son in 1852.
Frederick Richard Say (fl. 1826–1858),
