of Arroyo Molino, when the French general, Girard, suffered an overwhelming defeat on 28 Oct. His assistance was acknowledged with thanks by Hill in his despatch, and Squire was promoted on 5 Dec. to be brevet major for his services. In March 1812 Squire was one of the two directors of the attack at the third siege of Badajoz under Sir Richard Fletcher [q. v.], Burgoyne being the other director, taking twenty-four hours' duty in the trenches turn about. On the capture of Badajoz by assault, on 6 April, Squire was mentioned by Wellington in his despatch, where he refers to the assistance which Squire rendered to Major Wilson and the 48th regiment in establishing themselves in the ravelin of San Roque. Squire was promoted to be brevet lieutenant-colonel on 27 April, and was awarded the gold medal for Badajoz.
Squire continued to be attached to Hill's corps, which now attempted the destruction of the French bridge of boats at Almarez. But his exertions and fatigue at the siege of Badajoz had greatly exhausted him; and, having repaired the bridge of Merida, he was hastening to join Hill when he fell from his horse and was carried to Truxillo. There he died of fever and prostration on 19 May 1812. Seldom was the loss of an officer of his rank more deplored.
[War Office Records; Despatches; Royal Engineers' Records; Gent. Mag. 1811 i. 481, 1812 i. 668; Conolly's Hist. of the Royal Sappers and Miners; Porter's Hist. of the Corps of Royal Engineers; private memoir and papers; Jones's Sieges in Spain; Napier's Hist. of the War in the Peninsula; Maxwell's Life of Wellington; Life of Sir John Moore; Carmichael Smyth's Wars in the Low Countries; Wrottesley's Life and Correspondence of Field-marshal Sir John Burgoyne; Anderson's Journal of the Forces under Sir Ralph Abercromby in the Mediterranean and Egypt, and the Operations of Lord Hutchinson to the Surrender of Alexandria, 4to, London, 1802; Walsh's Journal of the Campaign in Egypt; MacCarthy's Recollections of the Storming of the Castle of Badajoz.]
SQUIRE, SAMUEL (1713–1766), bishop of St. Davids, baptised at Warminster, Wiltshire, in 1713, was son of Thomas Squire (d. 30 Nov. 1761, aged 74), druggist and apothecary of that town, who married, in 1708, Susan, daughter of John Scott, rector of Bishopstrow, a neighbouring parish. She died on 9 Aug. 1758, aged 72 (Hoare, Modern Wiltshire, ‘Warminster,’ pp. 21, 26).
Samuel was admitted pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, on 23 June 1730, and became Somerset scholar of the college on 11 July in that year. Dr. John Newcome, afterwards master of St. John's and dean of Rochester, one of the whig leaders at the university, had married his father's sister, and was able to benefit him by his influence in the college and with the Duke of Newcastle. Squire, who was known as a plodding rather than a clever scholar, graduated B.A. in 1733–4, and M.A. on 5 July 1737, obtained the Craven scholarship on 10 June 1734, and was elected a fellow of his college on 24 March 1734–5. He was ordained deacon on Trinity Sunday 1739, and priest in 1741, and in the latter year was appointed by his college to the vicarage of Minting in Lincolnshire. In February 1742 he withdrew from Cambridge to reside in the palace at Wells as domestic chaplain to the bishop, Dr. John Wynn, and on 21 May 1743 was appointed by his diocesan to the archdeaconry of Bath and the prebendal stall of Wanstraw in Wells Cathedral. These preferments he retained until 1761.
Squire developed a keen talent for his own advancement in life. He adopted Newcome's whig principles, and from 1748 was chaplain to the Duke of Newcastle. When the duke was installed as chancellor of the university of Cambridge, he preached one of the commencement sermons on 2 July 1749, and proceeded to the degree of D.D. From that time he acted as the chancellor's secretary for university affairs, and he lived for some period in the duke's house as domestic chaplain. As a parasite of the Duke of Newcastle he was ridiculed in 1749 by William King (1685–1763) [q. v.], in ‘A Key to the Fragment. By Amias Riddinge, B.D.,’ chap. iv. (King, Anecdotes, pp. 153–5). Few men were more generally disliked in the university, and the reputation for servility clung to him through life; but his rise in the church was rapid. By the nomination of the crown Squire was admitted on 21 Nov. 1749 to the rectory of Topsfield in Essex; but to gratify Archbishop Herring, who desired to obtain that benefice for a relative, he resigned it in the following March, receiving in its place the rectory of St. Anne's, Soho. On 22 June 1751 he was instituted, on the gift of the crown, to the vicarage of Greenwich, and these two valuable benefices he retained until his death.
On the establishment in 1756 of a household for the young Prince of Wales, afterwards George III, the post of clerk of the closet was conferred on Squire. But he was not yet satisfied. In October 1758 he urged Lord Chesterfield to obtain a bishopric for him from the Duke of Newcastle, but Chesterfield declined to move in the matter (Ernst, Chesterfield, pp. 506–8). He was, however, installed in the deanery of Bristol on 13 June 1760, and the first bishopric, that of St.
