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Ford the same capacity to Arthur Capel, earl of Essex. He did not, however, continue in office long, 'for being sent into England on some important affair, contrived by those who were willing to put him out of the way, he returned no more unto Ireland' (, p. 316). The fact was that his brusque, overbearing manner made him everywhere disliked. He died in 1684, aged 65, at Nutwell Court, and was buried in Woodbury Church (, Magna Britannia, vol. vi., Devonshire, pt. i. pp. cxcv-vi, pt. ii. pp. 291-292). He left a son Charles, supposed to have died in his minority, and three daughters, married to Drake, Holwell, and Egerton (ib. vol. vi. pt: ii. p. 571). On 22 July 1663 he was elected F.R.S. (, Hist. of Roy. Soc., appendix iv.), and remained in the society until 1682 (Lists of Roy. Soc. in Brit. Mus.)

[Prince's Worthies of Devon, 1701, pp. 314-16.]  FORD, JAMES (1779–1850), antiquary, born at Canterbury on 31 Oct. 1779, was the eldest son of the Rev. James Ford, B.A., minor canon of Durham, and afterwards minor canon of Canterbury. He entered the King's School, Canterbury, in 1788, matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, 8 July 1797, and became fellow of his college 2 June 1807. He graduated B.A. 1801. M.A. 1804, B.D. 1812, and in 1811 was junior proctor of the university. He held the perpetual curacies of St. Laurence, Ipswich, and of Hill Farrance, Somersetshire. He was subsequently presented (28 Oct. 1830) to the vicarage of Navestock in Essex, and died 31 Jan. 1850. His quaint directions (see, Memorials, p. 96) for a funeral of great simplicity were carried out when he was buried in Navestock churchyard. There is a monument to him in Navestock Church, and a portrait of him in the common room of Trinity College, Oxford. He married, on 19 Nov. 1830, Lætitia, youngest daughter of Edward Jermyn, bookseller, of Ipswich, but left no children. To the university of Oxford Ford bequeathed 2,000l. for the endowment of 'Ford's Professorship of English History,' and to Trinity College, Oxford, 4,000l. for the purchase of advowsons, as well as 4,000l. for the endowment of four 'Ford's Studentships,' two of which were to be confined to youths educated at the King's School, Canterbury. Ford was a collector and compiler on antiquarian subjects. His large collection for a new edition of Morant's 'History of Essex' is in the library of Trinity College, Oxford, and his manuscript collections for a history of bishops from the Revolution onwards were purchased by the British Museum. He was also a contributor to the 'Gentleman's Magazine' and to Nichols's 'Literary Illustrations,' vols. vi. and viii., and was the author of 'The Devout Communicant,' 1815, 12mo, and 'A Century of Christian Prayers,' 2nd ed. Ipswich, 1824, 8vo.

[Sidebotham's Memorials of the King's School, Canterbury (1865), pp. 95-8; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Nichols's Lit. Illustr. viii. 659, 668; Gent. Mag. 1848, new ser. xxx. 330.]  FORD, JOHN (fl. 1639), dramatist, second son of Thomas Ford of Ilsington, Devonshire, was baptised at Ilsington 17 April 1586. His mother was a sister of Lord-chief-justice Popham. He is probably the John Ford, 'Devon, gen. f.,' who matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, 26 March 1601, aged sixteen years (Oxford Univ. Reg. vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 246). On 16 Nov. 1602 Ford was admitted a member of the Middle Temple. In 1606 he published an elegy on the Earl of Devonshire, 'Fames Memoriall; or the Earle of Devonshire Deceased. With his honourable life, peacefull end, and solemne Funerall,' 4to, with a dedicatory sonnet to the Lady Penelope, countess of Devonshire, and commendatory verses by Barnabe Barnes and 'T. P.' Ford seems to have had no personal acquaintance with the earl or with Lady Penelope, and he is careful to state that his elegy was not written from any mercenary motive. In the course of the poem he makes mysterious allusions to a lady, 'bright Lycia the cruel, the cruel-subtle,' whose affections he had vainly sought to engage. To 1606 also belongs 'Honor Trivmphant; or the Peeres Challenge, by Armes defensible, at Tilt, Turney, and Barriers. . . . Also the Monarches Meeting; or the King of Denmarkes welcome into England,' 4to. His earliest dramatic work was an unpublished comedy entitled 'An Ill Beginning has [or may have] a Good End,' acted at the Cockpit in 1613. On 25 Nov. 1615 ' A booke called Sir Thomas Overburyes Ghost, contayneing the history of his life and vntimely death, by John Fford, gent.,' was entered in the Stationers' Register. This must have been a prose-tract or a poem, as a play on the subject would certainly have been forbidden. In 1620 Ford published a moral treatise, 'A Line of Life. Pointing out the Immortalitie of a Vertuous Name,' 12mo.

First on the list of Ford's plays in order of publication is 'The Lovers Melancholy. Acted at the Private House in the Blacke Friers, and publikely at the Globe by the Kings Maiesties seruants,' 1629, 4to, which 2