Anglo-Indian officer, and spent some years in travelling about the continent. He eventually retired to the Charterhouse, where he died on 29 May 1882. Sheehan's chief literary work is included in Doran's edition of the Bentley Ballads' (1858), and in his own enlarged edition of the same work (1869). [Jerrold's Final Reliques of Father Prout; O'Donoghue's Life of William Carleton; O'Callaghan's Green Book; Gent. Mag. 1874-5; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland.] D. J. O'D. grave's Memoirs of the Rebellions in Ireland, i. 37. ii. App. i.; Amyas Griffith's Miscellaneous Tracts, pp. 56, 71; Curry's Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland, ii. 274; Irish Parliamentary Debates, vii. 342; Mr. O'Leary's Defence, 1787; Madden's United Irishmen, 1858, i. 29-88.] E. I. C. SHEEPSHANKS, JOHN (1787-1863), art amateur and public benefactor, was born in 1787 at Leeds, of which city his father, Joseph Sheepshanks, was a wealthy clothmanufacturer. His mother was Ann Wilson of a Westmoreland family. Richard Sheepshanks [q. v.], the well-known astronomer, was his younger brother. Until middle age he was a partner in his father's firm of York & Sheepshanks. SHEEHY, NICHOLAS (1728-1766), Irish priest, born at Fethard, Tipperary, in 1728, was educated in France. On his return to Tipperary he became parish priest of Clogheen. There he acted as a staunch While engaged in business he developed adherent of the party hostile to English a taste for picture collecting, at first acquirrule. He openly condemned the collec- ing copies of the Italian masters, but he tion of church rates, and was especially soon resolved to form a representative colleczealous in the defence of prisoners charged tion of modern pictures by British artists. with political offences. His parish was a At the time there were practically only centre of the Whiteboy organisation, and two others collecting on similar lines, John there can be no doubt that he had a full Julius Angerstein [q. v. and Robert Verknowledge of their schemes, and lent his non [q. v. In 1857 Sheepshanks made assistance to many of their undertakings. over his collection to the nation as a free More than once he was unsuccessfully pro- gift. It consisted of 233 pictures in oil, secuted under the Registration Act. In besides 289 drawings and sketches, many of 1764, however, matters came to a crisis. the latter being developments at various An informer named Bridge disappeared in a stages up to elaborate completion of the manner which left little doubt that he had painter's early ideas. Among artists reprebeen murdered. Soon after some troopers sented are Turner, Stothard, Landseer, conveying a prisoner to Clonmel gaol Linnell, Mulready, Constable, Leslie, Rowere attacked near Sheehy's house. He berts, Stanfield, Wilkie, Creswick, Bonningwas charged with high treason, but he eston, Crome, and Nasmyth. The deed of caped those sent to arrest him, and a re-gift was framed with a view to rendering ward of 3001. was offered for his capture. He agreed to surrender, provided he might be tried in Dublin and not in Clonmel. The condition was accepted, and at his trial in 1765 the evidence broke down; he proved an alibi, and was acquitted. He was, however, immediately rearrested and, with his cousin Edmund, charged with complicity in Bridge's murder. In violation of the spirit of the government pledges, he was sent to Clonmel to be tried. There, in spite of the fact that the informer's body had never been discovered, he and his brother were found guilty, and were executed on 15 March 1766. There were serious flaws in the evidence against Sheehy, though a general complicity in Whiteboy proceedings was proved. In a letter to Major Joseph Sirr [see under SIRR, HENRY CHARLES], who had befriended him, Sheehy admitted his knowledge of Bridge's murder, but asserted his innocence of the crime. [Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography, p. 473; Froude's English in Ireland, ii. 32; Mus the pictures a source of education to the rising generation of artists, and, with this end in view, they were housed in the South Kensington Museum, where they are accessible to students and the public. In a truly altruistic spirit he stated that it was not his desire that his collection should be kept apart or bear his name as such;' and there is a notable proviso that so soon as arrangements can be properly made,' the collection shall be open on Sunday afternoons. This provision was first carried out in 1896. On retiring from business Sheepshanks settled in London, moving to Hastings about 1833, and then to Blackheath, where he devoted himself to horticulture, becoming a fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. Later he built himself a house in Rutland Gate, in which the last years of his life were spent. He was of a retiring and unostentatious disposition, but his house was the resort of men famous in art and literature. He died unmarried on 5 Oct. 1863. SHEEPSHANKS, RICHARD (17941855), astronomer, was the fourth son and sixth child of Joseph Sheepshanks, a cloth manufacturer in Leeds, Yorkshire, by his wife Anne, daughter of Richard Wilson of Kendal, and was born at Leeds on 30 July 1794. John Sheepshanks [q. v.] was his brother. Educated at Richmond school in the same county under James Tate, whose intimate friend he became, he formed, with William Whewell, Adam Sedgwick, Connop Thirlwall, and others, the brilliant group known later at Cambridge as the Northern Lights.' Sheepshanks entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1812, graduated as tenth wrangler in 1816, and proceeded M.A. in 1819. He was elected fellow of his college in 1817, and, never marrying, retained the fellowship till his death. He was called to the bar in 1825, took orders in the church of England in 1828, but practised neither profession, the comparative affluence in which his father's death left him permitting him to follow instead his scientific vocation. He joined the Astronomical Society on 14 Jan. 1825, and, as its secretary from 1829 onwards, edited for many years and greatly improved its Monthly Notices.' In 1830 the Royal Society admitted him to membership, and two years later elected him to its council. He took part in 1828 in Sir George Airy's pendulum-operations in Dolcoath mine, Cornwall, rendered abortive by subterranean floods, and about the same time actively promoted the establishment of the Cambridge observatory. Appointed in 1831 a commissioner for revising borough boundaries under the Reform Act, he visited and determined most of those between the Thames and Humber. His advice in favour of suppressing the imperfect edition of Stephen Groombridge's Circumpolar Catalogue' was acted on by the admiralty in 1833; and he was entrusted with the reduction of the astronomical observations made by Lieutenant Murphy during General Chesney's survey of the Euphrates valley in 1835-6. Sheepshanks took a prominent part in the South equatoreal case as scientific adviser on the side of Edward Troughton [q. v.] The hostile relations between him and Sir James South [q. v.], which began with disputes at the council board of the Astronomical Society, were thereby embittered; and Charles Babbage [q. v.], another of his foes, wrote a chapter on The Intrigues of Science' in his 'Exposition of 1851, consisting mainly of a violent attack upon him and Sir George Airy, both of whom he suspected of having adversely influenced the government as regards his calculating machine. South then published in the 'Mechanics' Magazine' for 24 Jan. 1852 a maliciously embellished account of a smuggling transaction by which Sheepshanks had introduced in 1823 from Paris to London a Jecker's circle with Troughton's name engraved upon it. Babbage sent copies to the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, 'as a sort of impeachment,' and even brought the matter before the board of visitors of the Royal Observatory, to which Sheepshanks belonged. He defended himself, admitting and regretting the fraud upon the custom-house, but denying the alleged aggravating circumstances, in a lengthy and abusive Letter in Reply to the Calumnies of Mr. Babbage' (1854). This was one of several 'piquant pamphlets' which remain to illustrate the science of our century, and will furnish ample materials to the future collector of our literary curiosities' (DE MORGAN). Another dealt with the award of the Neptune medal;' a third, in 1845, with the affairs of the Liverpool observatory. When asked why he allowed himself to enter into such disputes, he would reply that he was just the person for it; that he had leisure, courage, and contempt for opinion when he knew he was right' (De Morgan in Examiner, 8 Sept. 1855). 6 6 Sheepshanks was a member of the royal commissions on weights and measures in 1838 and 1843, and was entrusted in 1844, after the death of Francis Baily [q. v.], with the reconstruction of the standard of length. The work, for which he accepted no payment, occupied eleven laborious years. It was carried on in a cellar beneath the Astronomical Society's rooms in Somerset House, and involved the registration of nearly ninety thousand micrometrical readings. In order to insure their accuracy he constructed his own standard thermometers by a process communicated to the Royal Astronomical Society in June 1851 (Monthly Notices, xi. 233). His succinct account of the whole series of operations was embodied in the report of the commissioners presented to parliament in 1854; and they were described by Sir George Airy before the Royal Society on 18 June 1857 (Phil. Trans. cxlvii. 646). Their result was of first-class excellence, and the new standard, with certain authorised copies, was legalised by a bill which received the royal assent on 30 July 1855. astronomy, terrestrial magnetism, and meteorology at the observatory, as well as for the foundation of an exhibition in astronomy bearing her brother's name; to which munificent gift she added in 1860 2,0007. for the purchase of a transit circle. To the Royal Astronomical Society she made, in 1857, a donation of Sheepshanks's extensive and valuable collection of instruments, and was elected in return to honorary membership on 14 Feb. 1862. She died at Reading on 8 Feb. 1876, aged 86. [Monthly Notices Roy. Astr. Society, xvi. 90, xviii. 90, xxxvii. 143; Proceedings Roy. Soc. vii. 612; Memoir of Augustus de Morgan by Sophia de Morgan; Ann. Reg. 1855, p. 298; Taylor's Leeds Worthies, pp. 239, 457; English Cyclopædia (Knight).] A. M. C. Sheepshanks presented in 1838 to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, an eightfoot equatoreal, with an object-glass, by Cauchoix, of nearly seven inches aperture. In the same year he determined the longitudes of Antwerp and Brussels (Mémoires de l'Acad. des Sciences, t. xvi., Bruxelles, 1843), and in 1844 those of Valentia, Kingstown, and Liverpool, collecting for the purpose an array of the best chronometers. On instruments he spared no expense; he was an adept in their history and theory, experi- SHEERES, SIR HENRY (d.1710), milimenting more than he observed with them; tary engineer and author, was son of Henry and he contributed to the Penny Cyclo- Sheeres of Deptford, a captain in the navy pædia' a number of admirable articles on (Harl. Soc. Publ. viii. 516). In 1666 he this branch of astronomy. Many now fami- accompanied Edward Montagu, first earl of liar improvements were of his devising, and Sandwich [q. v.], the English ambassador, he originated an effective and easy method of to Spain in a diplomatic capacity. On his driving an equatoreal by clockwork. He return in 1668 he became intimate with resided from 1824 to 1841 at Woburn Place, Pepys, who took a strong liking for him, but London, thenceforward at Reading. A small his attachment cooled owing to the advances observatory was attached to each house. which Sheeres, who was something of a poet, made to Pepys's wife. Sheeres left England for Tangier in May 1669, and resided in that colony as engineer for fourteen years (cf. A short Account of the Progress of the Mole at Tangier). He superintended the blowing up of the Mole in 1683, when the place was abandoned (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. v. 102). He hastened to England in 1684 in order to defend, at court, George Legge, baron Dartmouth [q. v.], the admiral at Tangier, against accusations of peculation. Aided by Pepys, he was successful in this task, and thereby permanently established himself in Dartmouth's favour (ib. pp. 112-14). In 1685 he took part in the campaign against Monmouth as an officer of artillery, and was present at the battle of Sedgmoor (ib. pp. 126, 128). In July he was knighted for his services (LUTTRELL, Brief Relation, 1857, i. 355), and about the same time was made surveyor of the ordnance. Sir Henry preserved his loyalty to James during the revolution of 1688, but illness prevented him taking an active share in the contest (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. v. 202, 233, 236, 247). He followed the example of his patron, Dartmouth, in peacefully submitting to the new rulers when their authority was established. But he retained his devotion to James, and was twice arrested on suspicion of conspiring on his behalf, in June 1690 and in March 1695-6. On 29 July 1855 he was struck with paralysis, and died on 4 Aug. at Reading, aged 61. His character presented a curious mixture of merits and defects. He was a thorough friend and an unsparing opponent. He had a keen wit, and his satire cut to the bone; yet it was inspired by no real malignity. Augustus de Morgan, one of his closest intimates, described him as 'a man of hardly middle stature, of rapid and somewhat indistinct utterance, of very decided opinion upon the matter in discussion, and apparently of a sarcastic turn of thought and a piquant turn of phrase.' But in defending what he considered worth fighting for,' the tone of flighty sarcasm disappeared, and an earnest deportment took its place.' The 'radical parson,' as another of his associates called him, was excellent company. A classical scholar of no mean quality, he was also versed in English literature, and deeply read in military tactics. A portrait of him in early life was painted by John Jackson (1778-1831) [q. v.], and a monument, surmounted with a bust by John Henry Foley [q. v.], was erected to his memory in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. His sister, ANNE SHEEPSHANKS (17891876), lived with him from the time he left college, and was his sole heiress. In 1858 she presented 10,000l. to the university of Cambridge for the promotion of research in On 30 March 1700 he was chosen by the commons as one of the trustees to regulate William's Irish grants, which parliament had resumed, and in March following was summoned from Ireland by the peers to explain the proceedings of the commission to their lordships (Journals of the House of Commons, xiii. 307; Journals of the House of Lords, xvi. 622, 640, 645; LUTTRELL, Brief Relation, ii. 64, iv. 24, 628, v. 28). He died on 21 April 1710. Sheeres, who was a member of the Royal Society, was the author of: 1. 'A Translation of Polybius,' 1693, 8vo. 2. 'An Essay on the Certainty and Causes of the Earth's Motion,' 1698, 4to. 3. A Discourse on the Mediterranean Sea and the Streights of Gibraltar,' 1703, 8vo. He also edited two pamphlets by Sir Walter Ralegh, 'A Discourse on Seaports,' 1700, and 'An Essay on Ways and Means to maintain the Honour of England,' 1701; and was part author of a translation of Lucian, published in 1711. A poem of his was prefixed to Southern's Oronooko,' 1696. Several manuscripts by Sheeres, together with a correspondence with Pepys during his stay at Tangier, are among the Rawlinson MSS. at the Bodleian (COXE, Catalogue of Bodleian MSS., pt. v. index, s.v. Sheres); and a manuscript work by him, entitled A Discourse touching the Decay of our Naval Discipline,' dated 1694, is in the collection of the Duke of Leeds. [Pepys's Diary, ed. Braybrooke, index; SHEFFIELD, first EARL OF. i. 345; STOWE, Chronicle, p. 711). In 1588 he commanded the White Bear, one of the queen's ships, in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Howard knighted him on 25 July 1588, and in a letter to Walsingham commends him as not only gallant but discreet' (LAUGHTON, Defeat of the Spanish Armada, i. 210, ii. 322). For these services Elizabeth granted Sheffield in 1591 the manor of Mulgrave in Yorkshire, which was part of the forfeited estate of Sir Francis Bigod (Hatfield MSS. iv. 105). On 21 April 1593 Sheffield was elected a knight of the Garter (DOYLE). About 1594 he was a candidate for the wardenship of the west marches, and in 1595 he applied to Cecil for the post of lord president of the north. Suspicions of his religion caused by the fact that he had married a catholic were said to be the cause of his ill-success (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581--90 p. 145, 1595-7 p. 140, 15801625 p. 365). Yet he seems to have been suspected very unjustly, and a letter from the north in 1599 praises his zeal in apprehending priests. He will undertake any service against the papists, for God hath called him to a very zealous profession of religion' (CARTWRIGHT, Chapters of Yorkshire History, p. 174; cf. LAUGHTON, i. 66). On 13 Jan. 1598-9 Sheffield was appointed governor of Brill (COLLINS, Sidney Papers, ii. 71-80; Egerton Papers, p. 270). Under James I he obtained the object of his ambition, and became lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire (1 Aug. 1603) and president of the council of the north (19 Sept. 1603). These two posts he held till 1619, when he resigned his presidency to Lord Scrope. This resignation was probably not a volun[See HOL-tary one, for Sheffield having executed a SHEFFIELD, EDMUND, first EARL OF MULGRAVE (1564-1646), only son of John, second baron Sheffield of Butterwick, Lincolnshire [see under SHEFFIELD, SIR ROBERT, ad fin.], by Douglas, daughter of William Howard, first baron Howard of Effingham, was born about 1564, and succeeded to his father on 10 Dec. 1568 (DOYLE, Official Baronage, ii. 541; Complete Peerage, by G. E. C., v. 417). In 1573 his mother secretly married the Earl of Leicester [see DUDLEY, ROBERT], and Sheffield seems to have been for a time Dudley's ward (Hatfield MSS. ii. 200). In 1582 he was one of the lords whom Queen Elizabeth ordered to accompany the Duke of Anjou to Antwerp (Camden Annals, 1582). In 1585 he served as a volunteer under Leicester in the Netherlands (MOTLEY, United Netherlands, ed. 1869, catholic priest without the king's leave, James promised the Spanish ambassador that he should be removed (DOYLE, ii, 541; GARDINER, History of England, iii. 137; Court and Times of James I, ii. 136). An accusation of arbitrary conduct was also brought against him, but without result (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603-10, pp. 24, 531, 577). From 1616 to his death Sheffield was vice-admiral of the county of York. He also interested himself in colonisation, and was a member of the councils of the Virginia Company (23 May 1609), and of the New England Company (3 Nov. 1620). In the latter capacity he was one of the signers of the first Plymouth patent on 1 June 1621 (BROWN, Genesis of the United States, ii. 999). At the coronation of Charles I Sheffield was raised to the dignity of Earl of Mulgrave (5 Feb. 1626). Nevertheless he ultimately Mul [Doyle's Official Baronage, vol. ii.; G. E. C.'s Complete Peerage; a life of Mulgrave is given in Alexander Brown's Genesis of the United States, 1890, vol. ii. ; several of Mulgrave's letters are printed in the Fairfax Correspondence; his instructions as president of the north are printed in Prothero's Constitutional Documents; other authorities named in the article.] C. H. F. joined the opposition to that sovereign, was one of the twelve peers who signed the petition of 28 Aug. 1640, and took the side of the parliament during the civil war. The causes of Mulgrave's conduct are obscure. He appears to have been on tolerably good terms with Buckingham and Laud (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1627-8, p. 200; LAUD, Works, vii. 24, 29), but had some grievance against SHEFFIELD, EDMUND, second EARL Strafford, probably arising out of financial OF MULGRAVE (1611?-1658), born about disputes (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1635, 1611, was the grandson of Edmund Mulgrave, p. 362; Lords' Journals, iv. 206). first earl of Mulgrave [q. v.] His father, Sir grave's age prevented him taking an active John Sheffield, who was drowned in 1614, part in the war; all his family influence married Grizel, daughter of Sir Edmund was exerted for the parliament. This may Anderson, chief justice of common pleas be said of a Fairfax and a Sheffield,' remarks [9. v.] Mulgrave was appointed by the para newspaper of the time, that there is not liament vice-admiral of Yorkshire, in succesone of either of those names in England but sion to his grandfather (13 Nov. 1616), and was engaged for the service of the parlia- a year later one of the commissioners for the ment' (Weekly Intelligencer, 24 Sept. 1644). navy and customs (17 Dec. 1647) (Commons' Mulgrave's estates being mostly situated Journals, iv. 721; Lords' Journals, ix. 582). in the king's quarters, he was obliged to In August 1647 he signed the engagement petition parliament for support, and was to stand by Fairfax and the army for the granted 501. per week for his own subsis-restoration of the freedom of parliament tence, and 101. per week for his grandson, Lord Sheffield (Lords' Journals, vi. 528, vii. 280). His proxy vote in the House of Lords, in the hands of Lord Say, played a decisive part in the dispute between the two houses over the new model, and its transference in 1646 to the Earl of Essex gave the presbyterians the majority in the upper house (GARDINER, Great Civil War, ii. 187, iii. 105). Mulgrave died in October 1616, in his eighty-third year, and was buried in Hammersmith church, on the south side of the chancel (BROWN, p. 999). He married twice: first, Ursula, daughter of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, Lincolnshire, by whom he had six sons, who all predeceased him, and nine daughters. The second son, John, was father of Edmund Sheffield, second earl of Mulgrave q.v.(G. E. C. Complete Peerage, v. 417; DUGDALE, ii. 387). Secondly, 4 March 1619, Mariana, daughter of Sir William Irwin (Court and Times of James I, ii. 145). By his second marriage he had three sons and two daughters. His daughter Mary was the wife of Ferdinando, first lord Fairfax, and the mother of Sir Thomas Fairfax and of Colonel Charles Fairfax, who was killed at Marston Moor (Fairfax Correspondence, vol. i. pp. xxi, xlv, 165, iii. 131). Another daughter, Frances, was the wife of Sir William Fairfax, who was killed at Montgomery in 1644. Of Mulgrave's sons by his second marriage, James was captain of a troop of horse in Essex's army in 1642, and Thomas colonel of a regiment of horse in the new model in 1645 (PEACOCK, Army Lists, pp. 49, 107; MARKHAM, Great Lord Fairfax, p. 197). (RUSHWORTH, vii. 755). On 14 Feb. 1649 he was elected a member of the council of state of the Commonwealth, but declined to accept the post from dissatisfaction at the execution of the king and the abolition of the House of Lords (Commons' Journals, vi. 140, 146). When Cromwell became Protector, Mulgrave was less scrupulous, and on 30 June 1654 took his place in Cromwell's council, at which he was for some years a regular attendant (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1654, p. 230). In December 1657 the Protector summoned him to his new House of Lords, but Mulgrave never took his seat (GODWIN, History of the Commonwealth, iv. 470, 475). He died on 23 Aug. 1658 (Mercurius Politicus, 26 Aug.-2 Sept. 1658). A letter from Mulgrave to Fairfax is printed in the Fairfax Correspondence' (iii. 139), and two addressed to Thurloe among the Thurloe Papers' (iv. 523, vi. 716). His suits about the alum works in Yorkshire, and his dispute with his grandfather's widow about the property of the first earl, are frequently mentioned in the Journals' of the House of Lords (viii. 630, x. 243,347; cf. Hist. MSS. Comm., 7th Rep., pp. 24, 27, 30, 32). Mulgrave married Elizabeth, daughter of Lionel Cranfield, first earl of Middlesex [q.v.], and was succeeded by his son John, afterwards first duke of Buckingham and Normanby [q. v.] [Doyle's Official Baronetage, vol. ii.; Dugdale's Baronage. ii. 387.] C. H. F. SHEFFIELD, GEORGE (1839-1892), artist, son of a draper at Wigton in Cumberland, was born there on 1 Jan. 1839. |