Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/62

  [Pilkington's Dict. of Painters; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway and Wornum; Immerzeel's Levens en Werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche Kunstschilders; Rombouts and Van Lerius, Liggeren van de St. Lucas-Gilde te Antwerpen; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.] 

GASPEY, THOMAS (1788–1871), novelist and journalist, son of William Gaspey, a lieutenant in the navy, was born at Hoxton on 31 March 1788. While a youth he wrote verses for yearly pocket-books, and when about twenty contributed to ‘Literary Recreations,’ a monthly publication, edited by Eugenius Roche of the ‘Morning Post.’ Soon afterwards he was engaged as parliamentary reporter on the ‘Morning Post,’ contributing also dramatic reviews, clever political parodies, and reports of trials for treason. In this paper he wrote an ‘Elegy on the Marquis of Anglesey's Leg,’ a jeu d'esprit which has been persistently attributed to Canning. On the ‘Morning Post’ he was employed sixteen years, then for three or four years on the ‘Courier,’ a government paper, as sub-editor. In 1828 he bought a share in the ‘Sunday Times,’ the tone of which paper he raised as a literary and dramatic organ, Horace Smith, the Rev. T. Dale, Alfred Crowquill, E. L. Blanchard, Gilbert à Beckett, and others contributing. His novels and other publications include the following: 1. ‘The Mystery,’ 1820. 2. ‘Takings, or the Life of a Collegian, with 26 Etchings by Richard Dagley,’ 1821, 8vo. 3. ‘Calthorpe, or Fallen Fortunes,’ a novel, 1821, 3 vols. 4. ‘The Lollards, a Tale,’ 1822, 3 vols. 5. ‘Other Times, or the Monks of Leadenhall,’ 1823. 6. ‘The Witch-Finder,’ 1824, 3 vols. 7. ‘The History of George Godfrey,’ 1828, 3 vols. 8. ‘The Self-Condemned,’ 1836, 3 vols. 9. ‘Many-Coloured Life,’ 1842. 10. ‘The Pictorial History of France,’ 1843, written in conjunction with G. M. Bussey. 11. ‘The Life and Times of the Good Lord Cobham,’ 1843, 2 vols. 12mo. 12. ‘The Dream of Human Life,’ 1849–52, 2 vols. unfinished. 13. ‘The History of England from George III to 1859,’ 1852–9, 4 vols. 14. ‘The History of Smithfield,’ 1852. 15. ‘The Political Life of Wellington,’ vol. iii. 1853, 4to.

He was for many years the senior member of the council of the Literary Fund. He was a very kindly man, genial, witty, and an excellent mimic. The last twenty years of his life were spent quietly on his property at Shooter's Hill, Kent, where he died on 8 Dec. 1871, aged 83, and was buried at Plumstead, Kent.

He married Anne Camp in 1810 or 1811, and she died on 22 Jan. 1883. His son, Thomas W. Gaspey, Ph.D., of Heidelberg, who died on 22 Dec. 1871, was author of works on the Rhine and Heidelberg, and of several linguistic handbooks. Another son, William Gaspey (born at Westminster 20 June 1812, died at 17 St. Ann's Road, North Brixton, 19 July 1888), was a prolific writer in prose and verse.

[Information supplied by the late Mr. William Gaspey; British Museum, Advocates' Library, and other catalogues.] 

GASSIOT, JOHN PETER (1797–1877), scientific writer, was born in London 2 April 1797. He went to school at Lee, and afterwards was for a few years a midshipman in the royal navy. He married in 1818, and had nine sons and three daughters, six of whom survived him. Gassiot was a member of the firm of Martinez, Gassiot, & Co., wine merchants, of London and Oporto. He was a munificent friend to science. His house on Clapham Common was always open to his fellow-workers, and was provided with the best apparatus for scientific experiments. He was the chairman of the committee of Kew Observatory, which he helped to endow; he also endowed the Cowper Street Middle Class School, London, to which he bequeathed valuable apparatus; he founded the Royal Society Scientific Relief Fund; and was one of the founders of the Chemical Society in 1847. He was also a magistrate of Surrey. Gassiot wrote forty-four papers in various scientific periodicals; the first an ‘Account of Experiments with Voltameters having Electrodes exposing different Surfaces,’ appearing in the Electrical Society's ‘Transactions,’ 1837–40, pp. 107–10; and the last ‘On the Metallic Deposit obtained from the Induction Discharge in Vacuum Tubes,’ in the British Association Report for 1869, p. 46. His work was almost entirely concerned with the phenomena of electricity.

In the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1840 and 1844, Gassiot, who was a fellow of the Royal Society, described experiments made with a view to obtaining an electric spark before the circuit of the voltaic battery was completed. For these experiments he constructed batteries of immense power, commencing with a water battery of five hundred cells, and ending with 3,500 Leclanché cells. In 1844 he published perhaps his most important research—his experiments with a battery of one hundred Grove's cells, specially made of glass, with long glass stems, so that each cell was effectually insulated from its neighbours. With this battery Gassiot was able to prove that the static effects of a bat-