Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/447

 Brookes  which he retained until his death on 11 Nov. 1821. He acted for a time as assistant master at the grammar school, but was exceedingly unpopular with the boys, who at times ejected him from the schoolroom, struggling and shrieking out at the loudest pitch of an unmelodious voice his uncomplimentary opinions of them as 'blockheads.' He was an excellent scholar, and one of his pupils, Dr. Joseph Allen, bishop of Ely, frankly acknowledged, 'If it had not been for Joshua Brookes, I should never have been a fellow of Trinity' - which proved the stepping-stone to the episcopal bench. Brookes was a book collector; but although he brought together a large library, he was entirely deficient in the finer instincts of the bibliomaniac, and nothing could be more tasteless than his fashion of illustrating his books with tawdry and worthless engravings. His memory was prodigious. In his common talk he spoke the broad dialect of the county, and his uncouthness brought him frequently into disputes with the townspeople. He would interrupt the service of the church to administer a rebuke or to box the ears of some unruly boy. A caricature appeared in which he is represented as reading the burial service at a grave and saying, 'And I heard a voice from heaven saying - knock that black imp off the wall!' The artist was prosecuted and fined. Brookes's peculiarities brought him into frequent conflict with his fellow-clergymen. As chaplain of the Manchester collegiate church he baptised, married, and buried more persons than any clergyman in the kingdom. He is described in Parkinson's 'Old Church Clock' as the 'Rev. Joseph Rivers,' and he appears under his own name in the 'Manchester Man' of Mrs. G. Linnaeus Banks. In 'Blackwood's Magazine' for March 1821 appeared a 'Brief Sketch of the Rev. Josiah Streamlet,' and that Brookes read it is evident from his annotated copy, which is now in the Manchester Free Library. The article was incorrectly attributed to Mr. James Crossley, but is properly assigned to Mr. Charles Wheeler.

In appearance he was diminutive and corpulent; he had bushy, meeting brows (Parr styled him 'the gentleman with the straw-coloured eyebrows'), a shrill voice, and rapid utterance. He was careless and shabby in his dress, except on Sundays, when he was scrupulously clean and neat. His portrait, from a drawing taken by Minasi a few weeks before his death, has been engraved. His general appearance gained him the nickname of the 'Knave of Clubs,' though he was usually styled 'St. Crispin.'

[Free Thoughts on many Subjects, by a Manchester Man (the Rev. Robert Lamb), London, 1866, p. 122; Parkinson's Old Church Clock, 5th edition, with biographical sketch by John Evans, Manchester, 1880; Churton's Life of Nowell, pp. 200, 225; Booker's Hist. of Chorlton Chapel (Chetham Society); an article by John Harland in Chambers's Book of Days, ii. 568; Smith's Manchester Grammar School Register (Chetham Society), i. 109; Songs of the Wilsons, edited by Harland, Manchester, 1865; Bamford's Early Days, p. 292; Banks's Manchester Man, 1876, vol. iii. Appendix; Harland's Collectanea (Chetham Society).]  BROOKES, JOSHUA (1761–1833), anatomist, was born on 24 Nov. 1761, and studied anatomy and surgery in London under William Hunter, Hewson, Andrew Marshall, and Sheldon, afterwards attending the practice of Portal and other eminent surgeons at the Hôtel-Dieu, Paris. Returning to London he commenced to teach anatomy and form a museum. He was an accurate anatomist and excellent dissector, and prepared very many of the specimens in his museum. He invented a very useful method of preserving subjects for his lectures and class dissections, so as to preserve a healthy colour and arrest decomposition. For this he was elected F.R.S. His success as a teacher was so great that in the course of forty years more than five thousand pupils passed under his tuition in anatomy and physiology. He was very devoted to the formation of his museum, which from first to last cost him 30,000l., and was second only to that of John Hunter. It included a vast collection of specimens illustrating human and comparative anatomy, morbid and normal. His brother kept the celebrated menagerie in Exeter Change, and thus Brookes easily obtained specimens. In 1826, owing to ill-health brought on by constant presence in the atmosphere of the dissecting-room, he was compelled to leave off teaching; and at a dinner presided over by Dr. Pettigrew he received from the hands of the Duke of Sussex a marble bust of himself, subscribed for by his pupils. After vainly endeavouring to dispose of his museum entire, he was compelled to sell it piecemeal. The final sale took place on 1 March 1830 and twenty-two following days; but very little was realised for Brookes's support in his old age. He died 10 Jan. 1833, in Great Portland Street, London.

His published writings include 'Lectures on the Anatomy of the Ostrich' ('Lancet,' vol. xii.); 'Brookesian Museum,' 1827; 'Catalogue of Zootomical Collection,' 1828; 'Address to the Zoological Club of the Linnean Society,' 1828; 'Thoughts on Cholera,' 1831, proposing most useful hygienic precautions, especially as to the cleansing of the slums; 