Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/371

 of a human being to all about him, as Mr. Bonnycastle was.’

 BONNYCASTLE, RICHARD HENRY (1791–1848), lieutenant-colonel royal engineers, was the son of Professor John Bonnycastle [q. v.], and was born in 1791. He studied at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a cadet, and passed out as a second lieutenant of the royal engineers 28 Sept. 1808, becoming a first lieutenant in the following year. He served at the siege of Flushing in 1809, and in the American campaigns of 1812-14, during which he was present at the capture of Fort Castine, and the occupation of the part of the state of Maine east of the Penobscot, and was commanding engineer at the construction of the extensive works thrown up by the British on the Castine peninsula. He attained the rank of captain in 1814, in which year he married the daughter of Captain W. Johnstone. Subsequently he served with the army of occupation in France. As commanding royal engineer in Upper Canada, he rendered very important services during the Canadian rebellion in 1837-9, particularly in February 1838, when, at the head of a force of militia and volunteers, in the absence of regular troops, he defeated the designs of the insurgents at Napairee, and the brigands at Hickory Island, for an attack on the city of Kingston. For these services he was knighted. He was afterwards commanding engineer in Newfoundland. He became a brevet-major in 1837, a regimental lieutenant-colonel in 1840, and retired from the service in 1847. He died in 1848. Sir Richard, who was an excellent and painstaking officer and much esteemed, was author of: 1. ‘Spanish America, a Descriptive and Historical Account,’ &c., 2 vols. 8vo, with maps (London, 1818), a work which appears to have been compiled by the author, who was a good Spanish scholar, when at Woolwich after his return from France. 2. ‘The Canadas in 1842,’ 2 vols. 12mo (London,1842). 3. ‘Newfoundland in 1842,’ 2 vols. 8vo (London, 1842), in which the author sought to call attention to the resources of that oldest and, at the time, least known of British colonies. 4. ‘Canada and the Canadians in 1846,’ 12mo (London, 1846). At his death he left a mass of interesting writings relating to Canada, which were afterwards published under the editorship of Lieutenant-colonel (since General) Sir J. E. Alexander, C.B., with the title ‘Canada as it was and as it may be,’ 2 vols. 8vo (London, 1852).

 BONOMI, JOSEPH, the elder (1739–1808), architect, was born of Italian parents at Rome 19 Jan. 1739. In 1767, on the invitation of the brothers R. and J. Adam, he came to England. He had an excellent knowledge of perspective, which conduced much towards his professional success, In 1775 he married a cousin of Angelica Kauffman. In 1783 he went with his wife and family to Italy. During that visit he received the diploma of Associate of the Clementine Academy at Bologna. In the following year, his return being hastened by the death of a son, became back to England, and tinally settled in practice in London. In his native country he stood in high repute. Already in 1770 he had made a design for a sacristy, which Pope Pius VI proposed to erect at St. Peter’s at Rome, and in 1804 he received from the congregation of cardinals entrusted with the care of the metropolitan cathedral an honorary diploma, constituting him architect to the building. His knowledge of perspective, while it extended his fame and gmve beauty to his designs, made him the innocent cause of that rupture which led to the retirement of Sir Joshua Reynolds from the presidency of the Royal Academy. A sufficient account of the quarrel, and of Bonomi’s merely passive share in it, will be found in Leslie’s and other lives of Sir Joshua, In 1789, by the casting vote of the president, he was elected an associate of the Academy. It was Sir Joshua’s wish to have him made a full member, in order that the vacant chair of the professor of perspective might he suitably filled. The body of the Academy resisted the election, and Bonomi accordingly did not attain the dignity of full membership. He sent drawings to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy at various timcs between the years 1783 and 1806. He died in London on 9 March 1808, in his sixty-ninth year, and was buried in Marylebone Cemetery. His meritorious life and timely death are briefly epitomised in a Latin inscription, which will befound in the supplement to Lysons’s ‘Environs of London,’ p. 227. A good list of his works is given in the ‘Dictionary of the Architectural Publication Society,’ 1858. He was a leader in the revival of Grecian architecture, and his buildings are chiefly in that style. Amongst them may be mentioned Dale Park, Sussex, built 1784-8 for John Smith, Esq., M.P., illustrated in Neale's