Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/397

 preached at the Visitation of the Archdeacon of Gloucester, 8 May 1837,’ Gloucester, 1837, 8vo. 5. ‘The Effects of Literature upon the Moral Character: a Lecture delivered at the Tolsey, Gloucester, 3 Sept. 1839,’ Gloucester, 1839, 18mo. 6. ‘ Sermons preached in the Parish Church of St. Mary-de-Crypt, Gloucester’ (posthumous), London, 1841, 12mo.

[Private information.]  DOWLING, THADY (1544–1628), ecclesiastic and annalist, was a member of an old native family in the part of Ireland now known as the Queen's County. Of his life little is known beyond the circumstance of his having been about 1590 ecclesiastical treasurer of the see of Leighlin in the county of Carlow. In 1591 Dowling was advanced to the chancellorship of that see. He is mentioned in the record of a regal visitation in 1615 as an ancient Irish minister aged seventy-one, qualified to teach Latin and Irish. Dowling is stated to have died at Leighlin in 1628, in his eighty-fourth year. A grammar of the Irish language and other writings ascribed to him by Ware are not now known to be extant. His ‘Annals of Ireland,’ in Latin, were mainly compiled from printed books, with the addition occasionally of brief notices on local matters. The annals extend from the fabulous period to 1600, and most of the entries are very succinct. No autograph manuscript of Dowling's ‘Annales Hiberniæ’ is at present accessible. They were edited in 1849 for the Irish Archæological Society by the Very Rev. Richard Butler, dean of Clonmacnoise, from a transcript in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. The editor was unable to throw light upon Dowling's career, nor does he appear to have been fully conversant with the sources from which Dowling derived the materials for his compilation. Copies of documents of 1541 in the writing of and attested by Dowling as chancellor of Leighlin are extant among the State Papers, Ireland, in the Public Record Office, London. A transcript of an official document, with an attestation by Dowling in April 1555, is preserved in the same repository.

[Ware, De Scriptoribus Hiberniæ, 1639; MSS., Trinity College, Dublin; State Papers, Ireland, Public Record Office, London; Annals of Ireland, Dublin, 1849.]  DOWLING, VINCENT GEORGE (1785–1852), journalist, elder brother of Sir James Dowling [q. v.], was born in London in 1785, and received his earlier education in Ireland. He returned to London with his father after the union in 1801, and occasionally assisted him in his duties in connection with the ‘Times.’ Soon after he engaged with the ‘Star,’ and in 1809 transferred his services to the ‘Day’ newspaper. In 1804 he became a contributor to the ‘Observer,’ thus commencing his acquaintance with William Innell Clement [q. v.], which continued until Clement's death, 24 Jan. 1852. Dowling was appointed editor of ‘Bell's Life’ in August 1824, in which position he continued till his death. He was present in the lobby of the House of Commons when Bellingham shot Spencer Perceval, on 11 May 1812, and was one of the first persons to seize the murderer, from whose pocket he took a loaded pistol (, Autobiography, 1852, i. 133–41). He at times used extraordinary efforts to obtain early news for the ‘Observer.’ When Queen Caroline was about to return from the continent, after the accession of George IV in June 1820, Dowling proceeded to France to record her progress, and being entrusted with her majesty's despatches, he crossed the Channel in an open boat during a stormy night, and was the first to arrive in London with the news. He claimed to be the author of the plan on which the new police system was organised; even the names of the officers, inspectors, sergeants, &c., were published in ‘Bell's Life’ nearly two years before Sir Robert Peel spoke on the subject in 1829. In 1840 he wrote ‘ Fistiana, or the Oracle of the Ring,’ a work which he continued annually as long as he lived. He was also the writer of the article on ‘Boxing’ in Blaine's ‘Cyclopædia of Rural Sports’ in 1852 (reprinted 1870).

He was active in London parochial affairs; was constantly named stakeholder and referee in important sporting contests; and was anxious to make the ring a means of maintaining a manly love of fair play.

He died from disease of the heart, paralysis, and dropsy, at Stanmore Lodge, Kilburn, 25 Oct. 1852.

[Bell's Life in London, 31 Oct. 1852, p. 3; Illustrated London News, 13 Nov. 1852, pp. 406, 408, with portrait.]  DOWNE, JOHN, B.D. (1570?–1631), divine, son of John Downe, by his wife, Joan, daughter of John Jewel, and sister of the bishop of that name, was born at Holdsworthy, Devonshire, about 1570. He was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he proceeded to the degree of B.D., and was elected a fellow. In July 1600 he was incorporated at Oxford. He took orders, and was presented by his college to the vicarage of Winsford, Somersetshire. Later he was preferred to the living of Instow, in his native county, and held it till his death, which 