Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/72

 church lands, of which he took full advantage, purchasing Whitbourne, a county residence attached to the see of Hereford, for 1,848l., and afterwards the palace of Hereford and various bishop's manors for 2,476l. (Memoir, 154-5). These purchases were of course nullified at the Restoration, and Richard Baxter mentions that Birch sought to persuade him to take the bishopric of Hereford 'because he thought to make a better bargain with me than with another' (, Register, 303). At the same time Birch made his worldly interests entirely subservient to his presbyterian principles. According to his own statement in the debate of 10 Feb. 1672-73, he suffered, on account of his opposition to the extreme measures of the Cromwellian party, as many as twenty-one imprisonments. When Charles II appeared in England as the champion of presbyterianism. Birch's wariness did not prevent him from being seen riding with Charles in Worcester the day before the baittle. This was remembered against him when fears arose in 1654 of a rising in Hereford, and he suffered an imprisonment in Hereford gaol from March of that year to November 1655 (, iv. 237). He was returned to the parliament which met March 1656, but was excluded, and, along with eighty others, signed a protest (, v. 453). He took a prominent part in the restoration of Charles II, being chosen in February 1659-60 a member of the new council of state, of which General Monk was the head (, Register, 66). Notwithstanding his dubious political action, he had held during the later years of the protectorship an important situation in the excise, and at the Restoration he was made auditor. That under the new regime his business instincts were still unimpaired is further shown by the entries in the State Papers (Calendar, Domestic Series (1664-6), pp. 361 and 383) regarding his rental, along with James Hamilton, ranger of Hyde Park, of 55 acres of land at the north-west corner of the park, at an annual rental of 5s., to be planted with apple-trees for cider, one half of the apples being for the use of the king's household. In February 1660-61 he acted as commissioner for disbanding the general's regiment of foot,' and in March following as commissioner for disbanding the navy (, 389). In the convention parliament he sat for Leominster, from 1671 to 1678 for Penrhyn, and during the remainder of his life for Weobly, the property of Weobly and also that of Garnstone having been purchased by him in 1661. His practical business talents and his acquaintance with military affairs enabled him in the debates to make use of his oratorical gifts with remarkable effect. His plan for the rebuilding of London after the great fire indicated great practical shrewdness, and, had it been followed both then and thereafter up to the present time, the question of housing the poor would have been completely solved. He proposed that the whole land should be sold to trustees, and resold again by them with preference to the old owner, 'which,' as Pepys justly remarks, 'would certainly have caused the city to be built where these trustees pleased (, Diary, iii. 412). Burnet says of Birch: 'He was the roughest and boldest speaker in the house, and talked in the language and phrases of a carrier, but with a beauty and eloquence that was always acceptable. I heard Coventry say he was the best speaker to carry a popular assembly before him that he had ever known.' He died 10 May 1691, and was buried at Weobly, where a monument was erected to his memory, the inscription of which was defaced by the Bishop of Hereford. In the new inscription the year of his birth is wrongly given as 1626 instead of 1616.

 BIRCH, JOHN (1745?–1815), surgeon, was born in 1745 or 1746, but where cannot now be traced. He served some years as a surgeon in the army, and afterwards settled in London. He was elected on 12 May 1784 surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, and held office till his death on 3 Feb. 1815. He was also surgeon extraordinary to the prince regent. Birch was a surgeon of much repute in his day, both in hospital and private practice, but was chiefly known for his enthusiastic advocacy of electricity as a remedial agent, and for his equally ardent opposition to the introduction of vaccination. He served the cause of medical electricity by founding an electrical department at St. Thomas's Hospital, and carrying it on with much energy. For more than twenty-one years, he says, he performed the manipulations himself, since he found it difficult to induce the students to take much interest in the subject. The kind of electricity employed was exclusively the frictional, which is now known to be of little use, the therapeutical value of galvanism being not at that time understood. Nevertheless his writings on the subject, which were widely circulated both in this country and abroad, must have