of small savings by means of stamps, (5) increased facilities for life insurance and annuities. In connexion with these last two improvements Fawcett, in 1880, with the assistance of Mr James Cardin, took great pains in drawing up a small pamphlet called Aids to Thrift, of which over a million copies were circulated gratis. A very useful minor innovation of his provided for the announcement on every pillar-box of the time of the “next collection.” In the post office, as elsewhere, he was a strong advocate of the employment of women. Proportional representation and the extension of franchise to women were both political doctrines which he adopted very early in his career, and never abandoned. Honours were showered upon him during his later years. He was made an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford, a fellow of the Royal Society, and was in 1883 elected lord rector of Glasgow University. But the stress of departmental work soon began to tell upon his health. In the autumn of 1882 he had a sharp attack of diphtheria complicated by typhoid, from which he never properly recovered. He resumed his activities, but on the 6th of November 1884 he succumbed at Cambridge to an attack of congestion of the lungs. He was buried in Trumpington churchyard, near Cambridge, and to his memory were erected a monument in Westminster Abbey, a statue in Salisbury market-place, and a drinking fountain on the Thames embankment.
In economic matters Fawcett’s position can best be described as transitional. He believed in co-operation almost as a panacea. In other matters he clung to the old laissez-faire theorists, and was a strong anti-socialist, with serious doubts about free education, though he supported the Factory Acts and wished their extension to agriculture. Apparent inconsistencies were harmonized to a great extent by his dominating anxiety to increase the well-being of the poor. One of his noblest traits was his kindliness and genuine affection for the humble and oppressed, country labourers and the like, for whom his sympathies seemed always on the increase. Another was his disposition to interest himself in and to befriend younger men. In the great affliction of his youth Fawcett bore himself with a fortitude which it would be difficult to parallel. The effect of his blindness was, as the event proved, the reverse of calamitous. It brought the great aim and purpose of his life to maturity at an earlier date than would otherwise have been possible, and it had a mellowing influence upon his character of an exceptional and beneficent kind. As a youth he was rough and canny, with a suspicion of harshness. The kindness evoked by his misfortune, a strongly reciprocated family affection, a growing capacity for making and keeping friends—these and other causes tended to ripen all that was best, and apparently that only, in a strong but somewhat stern character. His acerbity passed away, and in later life was reserved exclusively for official witnesses before parliamentary committees. Frank, helpful, conscientious to a fault, a shrewd gossip, and a staunch friend, he was a man whom no one could help liking. Several of his letters to his father and mother at different periods of his career are preserved in Leslie Stephen’s admirable Life (1885), and show a goodness of heart, together with a homely simplicity of nature, which is most touching. In appearance Fawcett was gaunt and tall, over 6 ft. 3 in. in height, large of bone, and massive in limb. (T. Se.)
FAWCETT, JOHN (1768–1837), English actor and playwright,
was born on the 29th of August 1768, the son of an actor of the
same name (d. 1793). At the age of eighteen he ran away from
school and appeared at Margate as Courtall in The Belle’s Stratagem; afterwards he joined Tate Wilkinson’s company
and turned from tragedy to low comedy parts. In 1791 he
appeared at Covent Garden, and in 1794 at the Haymarket.
Colman, then manager of that house, wrote a number of parts
designed to suit his talents, and two of Fawcett’s greatest
successes were as Dr. Pangloss in The Heir at Law (1797) and as
Dr Ollapod in The Poor Gentleman (1798). He retired from
the stage in 1830.
FAWKES, FRANCIS (1720–1777), English poet and divine,
was born at Warmsworth, near Doncaster, Yorkshire, where
his father was rector, and was baptized on the 4th of April 1720.
After studying at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated
M.A. in 1745, he took holy orders, and was successively curate
of Bramham, curate of Croydon, vicar of Orpington, and rector
of Hayes, and finally was made one of the chaplains to the princess
of Wales. His first publication is said to have been Bramham
Park, a Poem, in 1745; a volume of poems and translations
appeared in 1761; and Partridge Shooting, an eclogue, in 1764.
His translations of the minor Greek poets—Anacreon, Sappho,
Bion and Moschus, Musaeus, Theocritus and Apollonius—acquired
for him considerable fame, but they are less likely to be
remembered than his fine song, “Dear Tom, this brown jug,
that now foams with mild ale.” Fawkes died on the 26th of
August 1777.
FAWKES, GUY (1570–1606), English “gunpowder plot”
conspirator, son of Edward Fawkes of York, a member of a
good Yorkshire family and advocate of the archbishop of York’s
consistory court, was baptized at St Michael le Belfrey at York
on the 16th of April 1570. His parents were Protestants, and
he was educated at the free school at York, where, it is said,
John and Christopher Wright and the Jesuit Tesimond alias
Greenway, afterwards implicated in the conspiracy, were his
schoolfellows. On his father’s death in 1579 he inherited his
property. Soon afterwards his mother married, as her second
husband, Dionis Baynbrigge of Scotton in Yorkshire, to which
place the family removed. Fawkes’s stepfather was connected
with many Roman Catholic families, and was probably a Roman
Catholic himself, and Fawkes himself became a zealous adherent
of the old faith. Soon after he had come of age he disposed of
his property, and in 1593 went to Flanders and enlisted in the
Spanish army, assisting at the capture of Calais by the Spanish
in 1596 and gaining some military reputation. According to
Father Greenway he was “a man of great piety, of exemplary
temperance, of mild and cheerful demeanour, an enemy of
broils and disputes, a faithful friend and remarkable for his
punctual attendance upon religious observances,” while his
society was “sought by all the most distinguished in the archduke’s
camp for nobility and virtue.” He is described as “tall,
with brown hair and auburn beard.”
In 1604 Thomas Winter, at the instance of Catesby, in whose mind the gunpowder plot had now taken definite shape, introduced himself to Fawkes in Flanders, and as “a confident gentleman,” “best able for this business,” brought him on to England as assistant in the conspiracy. Shortly afterwards he was initiated into the plot, after taking an oath of secrecy, meeting Catesby, Thomas Winter, Thomas Percy and John Wright at a house behind St Clement’s (see Gunpowder Plot and Catesby, Robert). Owing to the fact of his being unknown in London, to his exceptional courage and coolness, and probably to his experience in the wars and at sieges, the actual accomplishment of the design was entrusted to Fawkes, and when the house adjoining the parliament house was hired in Percy’s name, he took charge of it as Percy’s servant, under the name of Johnson He acted as sentinel while the others worked at the mine in December 1604, probably directing their operations, and on the discovery of the adjoining cellar, situated immediately beneath the House of Lords, he arranged in it the barrels of gunpowder, which he covered over with firewood and coals and with iron bars to increase the force of the explosion. When all was ready in May 1605 Fawkes was despatched to Flanders to acquaint Sir William Stanley, the betrayer of Deventer, and the intriguer Owen with the plot. He returned in August and brought fresh gunpowder into the cellars to replace any which might be spoilt by damp. A slow match was prepared which would give him a quarter of an hour in which to escape from the explosion. On Saturday, the 26th of October, Lord Monteagle (q.v.) received the mysterious letter which revealed the conspiracy and of which the conspirators received information the following day. They, nevertheless, after some hesitation, hoping that the government would despise the warning, determined to proceed with their plans, and were encouraged in their resolution by Fawkes, who visited the cellar on the 30th and
