Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/371

 the lighthouse might represent its direction. This important discovery enabled the apparatus to be adjusted accurately before it left the manufactory.

Chance effected permanent alterations in the Whitby light on the newly formulated scientific principles. An elaborate paper on all the questions at issue which he sent to the commissioners in January 1861 is printed in their report. In May 1861, by request of the Trinity House, Chance took part in an examination of all the dioptric apparatus in their charge. Most of the lights were of French manufacture, and in several cases Chance could only remedy the defects by entire reconstruction, in which he made the final adjustments mostly with his own hands. The old system of requiring the firm to make the light in conformity with prescribed specifications was abandoned, and Chance with rare exceptions was left to design the light himself. He personally superintended every detail of the work, and from a sense of patriotism declined to patent improvements but made them public property. At the Paris Exhibition of 1867 the instruments of his design were proved by scientific tests to be superior in efficiency to similar apparatus of French manufacture. On 7 May in the same year he read before the Institution of Civil Engineers a paper on 'Optical Apparatus used in Lighthouses' (Proc. Inst. of Civ. Eng. xxvi. 477-506), which became a classic, and for which he was awarded a Telford medal and premium. He was also elected (21 May) an associate of the institution. On 22 April 1879 he read before the institution a second important paper on 'Dioptric Apparatus in Lighthouses for the Electric Light' (ib. lvii. 168-183.) Meanwhile in 1872, he relinquished to Dr. John Hopkinson [q. v. Suppl. I], whose services the firm then secured, the direction of the lighthouse works, and gradually retired from the management of the firm.

Chance was actively engaged in local and county affairs, and was prominent in directing the chief religious, educational, and philanthropic institutions in Birmingham. At a cost, including the endowment, of 30,000l. he gave the town in 1895 West Smethwick Park. He was high sheriff of Staffordshire in 1868, and was mainly instrumental in forming the Handsworth Volunteer Rifle Corps, the first corps in the Midlands. He was a director of the London and North Western railway from 1863 to 1874. In 1900 he endowed, at a cost of 50,000l., the Chance School of Engineering in the university of Birmingham. He was created a baronet on 19 June 1900, He lived at Brown's Green, Handsworth (1845-69), Four Oaks Park, Sutton Coldfield (1870-9), and afterwards at 51 Prince's Gate, London, and 1 Grand Avenue, Hove, where he died on 6 Jan. 1902. He was buried, after cremation at Woking, in the Church of England cemetery, Warstone Lane, Birmingham. By his will, dated 16 Oct. 1897, with codicils (1898-1901), he left an estate of the gross value of 252,629l. 19s. 5d.

He married, on 26 June 1845, Elizabeth, fourth daughter of George Ferguson of Houghton Hall, Carlisle; she died on 27 Aug. 1887, leaving three sons and five daughters. William, the eldest son, a barrister of the Inner Temple, succeeded as second baronet.

A portrait by J. C. Horsley, R.A. (1854), is in the possession of Mr. George F. Chance, of Clent Grove near Stourbridge. Another by Roden of Birmingham (circ. 1874) is in the possession of Sir William Chance, Orchards, near Godalming. A posthumous portrait by Joseph Gibbs, of Smethwick, was presented on 16 Dec. 1902 to the borough of Smethwick, and hangs in the town hall. A successful bust in bronze by Hamo Thornycroft, R.A. (1894), is the property of Sir William Chance; there is a replica, in West Smethwick Park, and another (in marble) in the possession of Mr. George F. Chance.

 CHANNER, GEORGE NICHOLAS (1842–1905), general, Indian staff corps, born at Allahabad on 7 Jan. 1842, was eldest surviving son of eight children of George Girdwood Channer, colonel, Bengal artillery (1811-95). His mother was Susan (d. 1895), eldest daughter of Nicholas Kendall, J.P., vicar of Talland and Lanlivery, Cornwall. Educated at Truro grammar school and Cheltenham college (1856-9), he passed direct on 4 Sept. 1859 into the Indian army, but served with the 89th and 95th regiments till 7 Aug. 1866, when he entered the Bengal staff corps. He was first employed on active service in the north-west frontier of India campaign in 1863-4. He served in the Ambela campaign, and was present at