Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/407

Gisborne sally popular as a country gentleman. He died at Pentrich in Derbyshire on 17 June 1851, leaving a widow and several grown-up sons and daughters. His principal works are: 1. 'The Vales of Wever,' written during his residence at Wootton Hall and published in London, 1797. 2. 'Reflections,' a poem written and published during his residence at Darley Dale between 1818 and 1835. He also kept a diary showing strong religious sentiments, from which extracts have been published.

[A Brief Memoir of the Life of John Gisborne, with Extracts from his Diary, 1852.]

 GISBORNE, MARIA (1770–1836), friend of Shelley, daughter of an English merchant at Constantinople named James, was born in 1770, apparently in England. When she was eight years old, her mother, who had been left in poverty, resolved to rejoin her husband, and sailed for Constantinople, where she was not welcome. James persuaded her to return to England by the promise of an annuity, but had his daughter stolen and concealed until her mother's departure. He then brought her up carefully. She showed a talent for painting, and grew up a beautiful and accomplished woman. Jeremy Bentham met her at her father's house in 1785, accompanied her on the violin, and said that she was the only woman he had met who could keep time. She soon afterwards married William Reveley, an architect who had been travelling in Greece to make sketches for Sir Richard Worsley. He contributed views in the Levant to the Museum Worsleyanum (1794), and in 1794 edited the third volume of James Stuart's 'Antiquities of Athens.' The marriage was imprudent; and the Reveleys returned to England, where they lived on an income of 140l. a year. She was the mother of two children before she was twenty. Reveley was a strong liberal, and became a friend of William Godwin and Holcroft. About 1791 Reveley received his first professional fee as an architect, 10l., for giving some help to Bentham in his Panopticon scheme (see, Works, iv. 78, 80, 83). Reveley died on 6 July 1799 from the rupture of a blood-vessel on the brain. Within a month Mrs. Reveley received an offer of marriage from Godwin, whose children she had taken into her house upon the death of the first Mrs. Godwin. She refused Godwin, and in May 1800 married John Gisborne. Gisborne had been in some commercial pursuit. They went to Rome in 1801, and took with them her son, Henry Willey Reveley, who was educated in Italy, became an engineer, married a sister of Copley Fielding, the painter, in 1824, and settled in Cape Town, and ultimately in Western Australia. The Gisbornes were living at Leghorn about 1815, where Gisborne tried to set up a business, and upon its failure settled down as a quiet student. They paid occasional visits to England, during one of which, in 1820, Shelley wrote his beautiful 'Letter to Maria Gisborne.' The Shelleys were known to them through the Godwins, and Mrs. Gisborne introduced Shelley to Calderon. The Gisbornes afterwards returned to England and settled at Plymouth. Mr. Gisborne was buried there 16 Jan. 1836, and Mrs. Gisborne on 23 April following.

[Dowden's Shelley, ii. 206, 228, 275, 319, 331; Paul's Godwin, i. 81, 135, 162, 239, 362, ii. 314; Bentham's Works, x. 154, 251.]

 GISBORNE, THOMAS, M.D. (d. 1806), president of the College of Physicians, was the second of the three sons of James Gisborne (d. 1759), rector of Staveley, Derbyshire, and prebendary of Durham, by Anne his wife (will of Rev. James Gisborne, registered in P. C. C. 326, Arran). Gisborne was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, of which society he was admitted a fellow. He proceeded B.A. in 1747, M.A. in 1751, and M.D. in 1758. On 24 Jan. 1757 he was elected physician to St. George's Hospital, an office which he resigned in 1781. He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 30 Sept. 1758, and a fellow on 1 Oct. 1759. He delivered the Gulstonian lectures in 1760, was censor in 1760, 1768, 1771, 1775, 1780, and 1783, elect on 28 June 1781, and president in 1791; again in 1794, and from 1796 to 1803. Gisborne was also physician in ordinary to the king. He was elected F.R.S. on 16 Nov. 1758 (, Hist. of Roy. Soc. Appendix iv. p. xlix). He died at Romiley in Stockport, Cheshire, on 24 Feb. 1806 (Gent. Mag. vol. lxxvi. pt. i. p. 287). He was at the time the senior fellow of St. John's College.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, ii. 227–8.]

 GISBORNE, THOMAS, the elder (1758–1846), divine, descendant of a family, members of which during two centuries had been mayors of Derby, and eldest son of John Gisborne of Yoxall, Staffordshire, by Anne, daughter of William Bateman of Derby, was born 31 Oct. 1758. He was for six years under John Pickering, vicar of Mackworth, Derby, and entered Harrow in 1773. In 1776 he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1780 as sixth wrangler and first chan-