Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/239

 retired from business in 1856. Between 1859 and 1881 he and his wife resided for part of each year at Sydenham. After Bray's death in 1884 Mrs. Bray lived at Ivy Cottage, St. Nicholas Street, Coventry, where she died of heart failure on 22 Feb. 1905. She was buried in Coventry cemetery.

Mrs. Bray, an accomplished woman, of gentle temper and sound judgment, wrote many educational books notable for their clearness and simplicity. The most important are 'Physiology and the Laws of Health, in Easy Lessons for Schools' (1860), and 'The Elements of Morality, in Easy Lessons for Home and School Teaching' (1882). About 15,000 copies of the former were sold. It was translated into French, and at Dr. Colenso's desire into Zulu. The latter, an excellent little book, was translated into Italian, Dutch, and Hindustani. 'Our Duty to Animals' (1871), for a long period a class book in the schools of the midland counties, 'Richard Barton' (1871), 'Paul Bradley' (1876), and 'Little Mop' (1886), impressed on the young the duty of kindness to animals. The establishment of the Coventry Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1874 was due to Mrs. Bray's initiative, and she acted as its honorary secretary until 1895.

(1812-1899), author, Mrs. Bray's elder sister, born at Hackney on 23 Nov. 1812, was educated at home, and from 1832 to 1841 was employed as a governess. In 1841 she settled at home at Hackney, and ten years later moved with her mother to Coventry. During 1844–6 she supervised George Eliot's translation of Strauss' 'Life of Jesus' (, George Eliot's Life, i. chap. 2). George Baillie of Glasgow having offered and awarded a prize for the best layman's essay against infidelity, in 1854 offered a second prize of 'twenty sovereigns' for the best discussion of 'both sides of the subject.' Sharing the religious views of her brother Charles and brother-in-law, Charles Bray, Miss Hennell won the second prize with her severely impartial 'Christianity and Infidelity: an Exposition of the Arguments on Both Sides' (1857). George Eliot credited it with 'very high and rare qualities of mind' (, George Eliot's Life, i. 35). In 1859 appeared Miss Hennell's 'Essay on the Sceptical Tendency of Butler's "Analogy,"' which ranks as a classical commentary on Butler's work. Gladstone, who refers to Miss Hennell as 'a member of a family of distinguished talents which is known to have exercised a powerful in influence on the mind and career of George Eliot,' wrote that 'No critic can surpass her either in reverence or in candour' (Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1895). 'Thoughts in Aid of Faith' (1860) is an attempt to reconcile religious feeling with philosophy and 'the higher criticism.' Her most ambitious work, 'Present Religion as a Faith owning Fellowship with Thought' (3 vols. 1865, 1873, and 1887), is marred by a laboured and involved style. Her object is 'to present a philosophical theism in consistence with scientific thought by the help of a doctrine of evolution' (cf., George Eliot, pp. 23-4). After Charles Bray's death in 1884 she lived with Mrs. Bray at Ivy Cottage, 1 St. Nicholas Street, Coventry. She died there on 7 March 1S99, and was buried in Coventry cemetery.



BRAYBROOKE, sixth. [See (1827-1904).]

BRERETON, JOSEPH LLOYD (1822–1901), educational reformer, born on 19 Oct. 1822 at Little Massingham Rectory, King's Lynn, was third son of eleven children of Charles David Brereton (d. 1868), for forty-seven years rector of Little Massingham, by his wife Frances (d. 1880), daughter of Joseph Wilson of Highbury Hill, Middlesex, and Stowlangtoft Hall, Suffolk. His father was an influential writer on poor law and agricultural questions between 1825 and 1828. Brereton was educated at Islington proprietary school under Dr. [q. v.], afterwards bishop of London, and at Rugby under Dr. Arnold (1838-41). He gained a scholarship at University College, Oxford, in 1842, obtained the Newdigate prize for a poem on the 'Battle of the Nile' in 1844, and graduated B.A. in 1846 and M.A. in 1857.

Taking holy orders, Brereton held curacies at St. Edmund's, Norwich, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, and St. James's, Paddington (1847-50). From 1852 to 1867 he was rector of West Buckland, North Devon, and from 1867 till death rector, in succession to his father, of Little Massingham. In 1882 Brereton, with his brother, General John Alfred Brereton, was severely