Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/534

 Bromley, Kent. He married twice: (1) in 1869, Georgina, daughter of Frank Dillon, by whom he had issue one daughter and one son; (2) Edith Marshman Dunn (born Edith Marshman), by whom he had a daughter.

 DONNELLY, JOHN FRETCHEVILLE DYKES (1834–1902), major-general, royal engineers, born in the Bay of Bombay on 2 July 1834, was only child of Lieutenant-colonel Thomas Donnelly (1802–1881), at one time deputy adjutant-general of the Bombay army, and from 1851 staff captain and afterwards staff officer at the East India Company's military college at Addiscombe until the closing of the college in 1861 (see  Addiscombe, with portrait). His mother was Jane Christiana, second daughter of Joseph Ballantine Dykes of Dovenby Hall, Cumberland. Educated at Highgate School (1843–8), he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich at the head of the list after a year's private tuition in August 1849, passed out first, and received a commission as second-lieutenant in the royal engineers on 23 June 1853, and after professional instruction at Chatham was promoted first-lieutenant on 17 February. Going out to the Crimea in June, Donnelly joined his corps on its march to Balaklava on 23 September, and next month was detailed for duty with the left attack on Sevastopol. He was present at the battle of Inkerman on 5 November, and subsequently worked in the trenches before Sevastopol with an energy to which Sir John Burgoyne called Lord Raglan's attention (21 Nov.). Through the severe weather of the winter of 1854-5 he was on duty in the trenches forty-one times by day and forty-three times by night. On the day after the abortive assault on the Redan (18 June), when he was with the second column, he by his promptitude and zeal obtained a substantial lodgment in the Russian rifle pits at the Little Mamelon. Donnelly was mentioned in Lord Raglan's despatches for this service. Soon after the fall of Sevastopol in September during which he was thrice in all mentioned in despatches (London Gazette, 18 Dec.), he was appointed aide-de-camp to Colonel E. T. Lloyd on 12 Nov. 1855, the commanding royal engineer in the Crimea, and accompanied him home in June 1856. He received the Crimea medal with clasps for Inkerman and Sevastopol, the Turkish medal, and the 5th class of the legion of honour. He had been recommended for the Victoria Cross without result, and received no promotion nor British distinction.

Joining the London military district in 1856, he was placed in command of a detachment of royal sappers and miners employed in preparing for building purposes the ground purchased at South Kensington out of the surplus funds of the Great Exhibition of 1851. It was intended to erect there a permanent museum and centre of science and art. Sir Henry Cole [q. v.], the director of the scheme, secured Donnelly's services on 1 April 1858 in reorganising at South Kensington the science and art department, which was controlled by the privy council's committee of education. On 1 Oct. 1859 he was appointed inspector for science in connection with the department. He had been promoted second captain on 1 April 1859, and was now seconded in his corps for ten years. But he did not return to regimental duty, and the rest of his career was identified with South Kensington. In 1869 he was allowed two and a half years' special leave, and in 1872 was placed on the reserve list. His promotion continued, as he was still liable for emergency service, and he became lieutenant-colonel on 1 Oct. 1877 and brevet-colonel on 1 Oct. 1881, retiring with the honorary rank of major-general on 31 Dec. 1887.

The success of the scheme for national instruction in science and art was largely due to Donnelly, although some of his methods came to be reckoned reactionary. In agreement with a much controverted principle he arranged (by minute of 1859) that grants should be made to certificated teachers on the results of the examinations of their pupils. Prizes were at the same time to be awarded to successful students, whether trained in recognised schools or otherwise. He obtained due recognition for drawing and manual training as class subjects, and having induced the Society of Arts, which he joined in 1860, to form a class in wood-carving, he procured from City companies and other sources funds to carry it on as the School of Art Wood-carving, which is now located in Thurloe Place, South Kensington.

In 1874 his title at South Kensington became 'Director of Science,' and his duties included the supervision not only of the science schools and classes throughout the country but of other important 