Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/213

 Dunlop resigned his staff appointments, joined his regiment, and commanded a field-force against a refractory rajah in Malabar, defeating three detachments, one of them two thousand strong, sent out against him. After this he commanded at Cochin. On the breaking out of the Mysore war, he was appointed to a European brigade in General Stewart's division, and commanded it in the action at Sedaseer 6 March, and at the capture of Seringapatam 4 May 1799, where he led the left column of assault (the right column being led by David Baird [q. v.]), and received a very severe tulwar wound, from which he never quite recovered. He was subsequently employed against the hill-forts in the Canara country, and soon after returned home. On the renewal of the war with France in 1803, Dunlop was ordered to take command of a royal garrison battalion in Guernsey, composed of recruiting detachments and recruits of king's regiments serving in India. In 1804 he exchanged from the 77th to 59th foot, then stationed on the Kentish coast; in 1805 he became brigadier-general and was appointed to a brigade in Cornwall; afterwards he was transferred to the eastern district, and for a time commanded a highland brigade at Colchester. He became a major-general 25 July 1810, and in October was appointed to the staff of Lord Wellington's army in the Peninsula, which he joined at Torres Vedras in November the same year. He was appointed to a brigade in the 5th division under General Leith, which took part in the pursuit of the French to Santarem. On Leith's departure after the return of the division to Torres Vedras, Dunlop assumed command. At the head of the division he joined Lord Wellington between Leiria and Pombal in March 1811, and commanded it throughout the ensuing campaign, including the battle of Fuentes d'Onoro, 5 May 1811, with the exception of a period of ten days, when the command devolved on Sir William Erskine. When the division went into winter quarters at Guarda, Dunlop obtained leave of absence and did not rejoin the Peninsular army. He was made lieutenant-general in 1814, and colonel 75th foot in 1827. He represented the stewartry of Kirkcudbright in three successive parliaments from 1812 to 1826. He died in 1832. Dunlop married, in 1802, Julia, daughter of Hugh Baillie of Monckton, and by her left issue. His son, John Dunlop, M.P., received a baronetcy in 1838.

[For the genealogy of the ancient Lowland family of Dunlop of Dunlop, see Jas. Paterson's Acct. of co. Ayr (Ayr, 1847), ii. 46–8; for Dunlop's services see Philippart's R. Mil. Cal. 1820, vol. iii.; Gent. Mag. cii. i. 640.] 

DUNLOP, JAMES (1795–1848), astronomer, was born in Ayrshire in 1795. He accompanied Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane [q. v.] to New South Wales in 1821 as assistant in the observatory founded by him at Paramatta, of which, after Rümker's departure on 16 June 1823, Dunlop remained in sole charge. The greater part of the observations for the ‘Brisbane Catalogue’ of 7385 southern stars, brought to a close on 2 March 1826, were thus made by him. He detected Encke's comet on 2 June 1822, at its first calculated return, and observed the bright comet of 1825 from 21 July to 8 Nov., inferring axial rotation from striking changes in the figure of its tail. An occultation by the same body of the third magnitude star η Eridani was carefully watched by him on 3 Oct. (Edinb. Journ. of Science, vi. 84).

After the return of his principal to Europe late in 1825 Dunlop resolved, at some sacrifice of his private interests, to remain in the colony for the purpose of exploring its little-known skies. A nine-foot reflector of his own construction served him for sweeping from the pole to latitude 30°; and his micrometrical measures of double stars were executed with a 46-inch equatorial, which he had provided with two micrometers—a parallel-line, and a double-image on Amici's principle. His own house at Paramatta was his observatory. The chief results were embodied in ‘A Catalogue of Nebulæ and Clusters of Stars in the Southern Hemisphere, observed at Paramatta in New South Wales,’ presented to the Royal Society by Sir John Herschel, and read on 20 Dec. 1827 (Phil. Trans. cxviii. 113). The collection included 629 objects, nearly all previously unknown, and was accompanied by drawings of the more remarkable among them. Its merit was acknowledged by the bestowal of the Astronomical Society's gold medal, in presenting which, on 8 Feb. 1828, Sir John Herschel spoke in high terms of Dunlop's qualities as an observer (Monthly Notices, i. 60). Unfortunately this favourable opinion was not altogether confirmed by subsequent experience. No more than 211 of Dunlop's nebulæ were disclosed by Herschel's far more powerful telescopes at the Cape, and he was driven to conclude that in a great number of cases ‘a want of sufficient light or defining power in the instrument used by Mr. Dunlop has been the cause of his setting down objects as nebulæ where none really exist’ (Observations at the Cape, p. 4). Nor did the ‘Brisbane Catalogue’ afford him the well-determined star places he expected from it. The polar distances proved indeed satisfactory; but the right ascensions were affected by comparatively large instru-