Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/205

 elder Dollond had attained the invention of the achromatic lens, and explained the fallacious result of Newton's well-known experiment on the subject by his (highly probable) use of Venetian glass, the dispersive power of which was approximately equal to that of water.

Dollond's workshops were very extensive; they turned out reflectors of the Gregorian form, besides refractors, and nearly all kinds of optical and astronomical instruments in British use. A heliometer, or ‘object-glass micrometer,’ constructed by him is preserved at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, but has not been used since 1868. With a similar instrument by the same artist Bessel measured in 1812 the distance between the components of 61 Cygni; and its high qualities suggested the acquisition from Fraunhofer of the famous Königsberg heliometer (, Encycl. Brit. xvi. 252). Among Dollond's minor improvements may be mentioned an ‘eirometer’ (1811), a ‘goniometer,’ a ‘patent binnacle compass, illuminated by prismatic reflection’ (1812), and an ‘improved achromatic telescope, made with brass sliding tubes’ (1800). He observed the transit of Venus on 3 June 1769 from Greenwich, and was for upwards of thirty years a member of the American Philosophical Society. He brought (1766–8) several successful actions against opticians for infringement of his father's patent (, Monthly Notices, xlvi. 460).

In 1817 Dollond took a residence on Richmond Hill, which he occupied for three years. A few days after his removal to Kennington, on 2 July 1820, he died, aged 90, widely regretted by the friends whom his social qualities had attracted and by the indigent whom his liberality had relieved. He left two daughters, one the widow of Dr. [q. v.], the other married to the Rev. Mr. Waddington, rector of Tuxford, Nottinghamshire.



DOLMAN, CHARLES (1807–1863), catholic publisher, born at Monmouth 20 Sept. 1807, was the only son of Charles Dolman, surgeon of that town, by his wife Mary Frances, daughter of Thomas Booker, a catholic publisher in London. Charles's father died in the year of his birth. His widowed mother in 1818 married as her second husband Mr. Thomas Buckley. Dolman was educated at the Benedictine college of St. Gregory's, Downside, near Bath. On leaving Downside he studied architecture for a while at Preston in Lancashire, under the guidance of Joseph Aloysius Hansom, the inventor of the two-wheeled cabs of London. He was invited by the Bookers to join their establishment at 61 New Bond Street. In 1840 he entered into partnership with his cousin, Thomas Booker, and the title of the firm became Booker & Dolman. Not long afterwards the property passed entirely into Dolman's possession. On 12 Jan. 1841 he married Frances, daughter of James and Apollonia Coverdale of Ingatestone Hall in Essex, by whom he had an only son, the Very Rev. Charles Vincent Dolman of Hereford, canon of Newport. In 1838 Charles Dolman started a new series of the ‘Catholic Magazine,’ which came to a close in 1844. In March 1845 he established ‘Dolman's Magazine,’ which was continued until the close of 1849. His energies were afterwards directed to the publication of works of a costly character, many of them richly illustrated, and several still highly valued as specimens of typography. Conspicuous among these were Rock's ‘Church of our Fathers,’ Kenelm Digby's ‘Broad Stone of Honour,’ and Barker's ‘Three Days of Wensleydale.’ In 1850 Dolman completed the publication of the fifth edition, in 10 vols. 8vo, of Lingard's ‘History of England,’ containing the annalist's last corrections. The expensive character of the works issued from the press by Dolman involved him at last in embarrassment. In 1858 he had exhausted all his capital, and tried to form his business into a limited liability company, called the Catholic Bookselling and Publishing Company. Dolman withdrew to Paris, where, with the help of friends, he set up a small business at No. 64 Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré. His health, always delicate, gave way, and he died there on 31 Dec. 1863, his widow dying in her sixty-sixth year, on 2 March 1885, at Erith.

[Personal recollections of the writer and memoranda by Charles Dolman's only son, the Very Rev. Canon Dolman of Hereford; see also Gillow's Bibl. Dict. of the English Catholics, ii. 87–90, 1885.]

DOMERHAM, ADAM (d. after 1291). [See .]

DOMETT, ALFRED (1811–1887), colonial statesman and poet, son of Nathaniel Domett, was born at Camberwell Grove, Surrey, 20 May 1811. From 1829 to 1833 he was at St. John's College, Cambridge, but left without a degree. In 1833 he published a volume of poems, and contributed verses to ‘Blackwood's Magazine’ in 1837, 1838,