Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/354

 Chat Moss if he wanted to make a railway from Liverpool to Manchester.’ ‘His estimate for the whole cutting and embankment over Chat Moss was 270,000l. nearly. … It would be necessary to take the Moss completely out at the bottom, in order to make a solid road.’ Giles afterwards became a railway locomotive engineer. He was an active member of the council of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and took a prominent part in the discussions of that body, besides contributing some valuable plans and charts to its collections. Giles died on 4 March 1847, in his sixtieth year.



GILES, JAMES (1801–1870), landscape-painter, was born at Glasgow, 4 Jan. 1801. His father, a native of Aberdeenshire, was an artist of some local repute, but his death threw his son at an early age upon his own resources. At thirteen he maintained himself, his mother and sister by painting, and before he was twenty taught private classes in Aberdeen. Shortly afterwards he made a tour through Scotland and visited the continent, and on his return home he was introduced to the Earl of Aberdeen, with whom he became very intimate. His earliest successes were in portrait-painting, but his visit to Italy gave him a taste for classic landscape, which he never entirely lost, for the mist seldom hangs about his mountains, even when the scene is laid near ‘dark Lochnagar.’ He was a keen angler, and fond of painting the result of a successful day's fishing. These pictures were his best works. He first exhibited at the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland, but in 1829 he became an academician of the Royal Scottish Academy, and contributed numerous works to its exhibitions from that time until near the close of his career. He also exhibited frequently at the British Institution in London, and occasionally at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists. His picture of ‘The Weird Wife’ is in the National Gallery of Scotland. His last work was a painting of himself, his wife, and youngest son, which he left unfinished. He died at his residence in Bon Accord Street, Aberdeen, after a lingering illness, 6 Oct. 1870. He was twice married, and by his first wife had a son, who gave great promise as an artist, but died of consumption at the early age of twenty-one.



GILES, JOHN ALLEN, D.C.L. (1808–1884), editor and translator, son of William Giles and his wife Sophia, whose maiden name was Allen, was born on 26 Oct. 1808 at Southwick House, in the parish of Mark, Somerset, the residence of his father and grandfather, and at the age of sixteen entered Charterhouse as a Somerset scholar. From Charterhouse he was elected to a Bath and Wells scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 26 Nov. 1824. In Easter term 1828 he obtained a double first class, and shortly afterwards graduated B.A., proceeding M.A. in 1831, in which year he gained the Vinerian scholarship, and took his D.C.L. degree in 1838. His election to a fellowship at Corpus on 15 Nov. 1832 followed his college scholarship as a matter of course. He wished to become a barrister, but was persuaded by his mother to take orders, and was ordained to the curacy of Cossington, Somerset. The following year he vacated his fellowship, and was married to Miss A. S. Dickinson. His ‘Scriptores Græci minores’ had been published in 1831, and his ‘Latin Grammar’ reached a third edition in 1833. In 1834 he was appointed to the head-mastership of Camberwell College School, and on 24 Nov. 1836 was elected head-master of the City of London School. He failed to preserve discipline; the school did not do well under him, and he resigned on 23 Jan. 1840; his resignation, however, has been attributed to some misfortune connected with building speculations (Times, 7 March 1855, p. 12). He retired to a house which he built near Bagshot, and there took pupils, and engaged in literary work. After a few years he became curate of Bampton, Oxfordshire, where he continued taking pupils, and edited and wrote a great number of books. Among them was one entitled ‘Christian Records,’ published in 1854, which related to the age and authenticity of the books of the New Testament. The bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, required him, on pain of losing his curacy, to suppress this work, and break off his connection with another literary undertaking on which he was engaged. After some letters, which were published, had passed on the subject, he complied with the bishop's demand.

On 6 March 1855 Giles was tried at the Oxford spring assizes before Lord Campbell, on the charges of having entered in the marriage register book of Bampton parish church a marriage under date 3 Oct. 1854, which took place on the 5th, he having him-