Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/177

 . Taking with him Mr. Durell, the advocate-general of the island, Falle proceeded (6 Feb. 1693) to wait upon his majesty at Kensington. Aided by Jermyn, and favourably received by the accomplished Dorset, the delegates hastened to point out (in the words of the address, drafted, it is said, by Falle) ‘the mischief and danger threatening your realms should the French become masters of this and the adjoining islands.’ The commissioners seem to have favourably impressed the sovereign and those departments of the public service before which they were successively permitted to appear. Not content with this, Falle, to strengthen his case with the public, resolved to preface a brief historical work setting forth the past services and future possibilities of Jersey. ‘Here then,’ he says, ‘an honest zeal for my native country suggested the thought of doing something that might place us in a new light, remove prejudices, and rectify misapprehensions. For, though we stood secure of his Majesty's favour and of the good opinion of the court, it seemed very desirable to have the body of the nation come into the same sentiments, and not be unconcerned at what would become of us.’ The first ‘Account of Jersey’ appeared in 1694, in which year the author was appointed chaplain to the king, and in that capacity preached a sermon upon Queen Mary's death (20 Dec. 1694). About the same time Falle edited a history of the campaign of Landen by his friend and colleague the Rev. Mr. Dauvergne, rector of St. Brelade. In January 1700 Falle became a prebendary of Durham. In 1709 he resigned his Jersey rectorship, having been collated to the valuable benefice of Shenley, near Barnet. In 1722 he contributed an account of the Channel Islands to Bishop Gibson's translation of Camden's ‘Britannia,’ and in 1734 brought out an expanded edition of his ‘History of Jersey.’ In 1736 he presented to his fellow-islanders his collection of books. Being subsequently augmented by a similar act of liberality on the part of Canon Dumaresq (d. 1805), this benefaction has gradually developed into a large library, for which the States have provided a suitable building in the town of St. Helier. The library is free of access, without subscription or other payment. Falle died at Shenley, 7 May 1742, having never married. His principal work is based on materials derived from his friend Poingdestre; but Falle cannot be fairly commended for the use made of the matter which he thus appropriated. His style, indeed, is that of an educated man; but his narrative is at once dull and credulous, nor does he always mention important events, even when he must have known of them from eye-witnesses. Falle published a few sermons, and ‘Account of the Isle of Jersey, the greatest of those Islands that are now the only remainder of the English Dominions in France, with a new and accurate map of that Island,’ 1694.

[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iv. 501; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 301; Life by E. Durell prefixed to Account of the Isle of Jersey, 1837; communications from H. M. Godfray of Exeter Coll. Oxford, esq., and from the Rev. Henry J. Newcome. Also Douzième Bulletin of the Société Jerséaise, St. Hélier, 1887.]  FALLOWS, FEARON (1789–1831), astronomer, was born at Cockermouth in Cumberland on 4 July 1789. Brought up to his father's trade of weaving, he devoted from childhood every spare moment to study, and a mathematical book was his constant companion at the loom. The Rev. H. A. Hervey, vicar of Bridekirk, to whom his father acted as parish clerk, obtained his appointment as assistant to Mr. Temple, head-master of Plumbland school. After Temple's death in 1808 he was enabled, by the patronage of some gentlemen of fortune, to enter St. John's College, Cambridge, whence he graduated as third wrangler in 1813, Sir J. Herschel [q. v.] being first. He held a mathematical lectureship in Corpus Christi College for two years, and was then elected to a fellowship in St. John's. He proceeded M.A. in 1816.

On 26 Oct. 1820 he was made director of an astronomical observatory, established by a resolution of the commissioners of longitude at the Cape of Good Hope. He sailed on 4 May 1821, accompanied by his newly married wife, the eldest daughter of Mr. Hervey, his former patron. On landing he chose a site within three miles of Cape Town, prepared plans for the future observatory, and began to construct an approximate catalogue of the chief southern stars with the aid of a diminutive transit by Dollond, and an indifferent altazimuth by Ramsden. The results were presented to the Royal Society on 26 Feb. 1824 as ‘A Catalogue of nearly all the Principal Fixed Stars between the zenith of Cape Town, Cape of Good Hope, and the South Pole, reduced to the 1st of Jan. 1824’ (Phil. Trans. cxiv. 457). The collection includes 273 stars, the original observations of which are preserved at Greenwich.

In July 1824 Fallows had to dismiss his assistant, and was left alone until December 1826, when Captain Ronald arrived from England, bringing with him the permanent instruments and the official sanction of his designs for the observatory. The work was now at once begun, Fallows living in a tent on the spot. The instruments were fixed in their places early in 1829. The transit by Dollond