Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/203

Hull design there for a short time. From 1841 to 1844 he travelled in France, Germany, and the Low Countries as tutor to the two sons of Mr. Janvrin, a merchant of St. Heliers in Jersey, and took every opportunity of continuing his study of art. On his return to Manchester in 1844 he contributed two pictures to the exhibition at the Royal Manchester Institution. Thenceforward he devoted himself entirely to painting and sketching, and before his death he reproduced with care and accuracy objects of interest and rural beauty in almost every county in England. His best work is in black and white and sepia, which he handled with marvellous skill. Of the drawings in this style may be instanced the sets of views of Oxford and Cambridge, and the illustrations to 'Charles Dickens and Rochester' engraved by his friend Robert Langton, the author of the book. He also drew some of the illustrations to Earwaker's 'History of East Cheshire,' and his drawings of the mill at Ambleside and Wythburn Church were reproduced in autotype. He etched several plates, some of which appeared as illustrations to books.

His work in colour was at no time wanting in harmony, but, as his friend Mr. Ruskin told him, though the colour was never bad, it was often used too sparingly. He made every effort to overcome this defect, and with some success in his latest works. In 1848 Hull joined the Letherbrow Club, a private literary and artistic society in Manchester, and its twelve manuscript volumes contain a series of letters on art, nature, and travel by him, interspersed with numerous illustrative drawings in pen and ink. He contributed a paper on 'Taste' to `Bradshaw's Magazine,' 1842-3; and in the `Portfolio' for January 1886 there appeared, together with a notice of the artist by Thomas Letherbrow, 'My Winter Quarters, written and illustrated by William Hull.'

He was a member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, and took some part in its management. To its exhibitions he was a constant contributor, and studied in its life class. He also exhibited regularly at the exhibitions of the Royal Manchester Institution, and the black and white exhibition held 1877 to 1880. In 1847 he married Mary S. E. Newling, who died without issue in Wales in 1861. In 1850 a stroke of paralysis left Hull lame and deaf. He made his home at Rydal in 1870, and dying there, 15 March 1880, was buried in the churchyard at Grasmere.

[Trans. Manchester Lit. Club, 1880; Manchester City News, 27 March 1880; Portfolio, January 1886.]  HULL, WILLIAM WINSTANLEY (1794–1873), liturgical writer and hymnologist, born at Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1794, was son of John Hull, M.D. [q. v.] After attending Manchester and Macclesfield grammar schools, he was for a time a pupil of John Dawson of Sedbergh [q. v.], the mathematician. He was sent to Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1811; obtained a first class in classics at Michaelmas, 1814 ; spent some months abroad, and was elected a fellow of his college in 1816. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 16 June 1820, and in the same year vacated his fellowship by marriage. But he was always interested in Oxford affairs, and maintained through life his intimacy with his Oxford friends, Whately, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, and Dr. Arnold. Many of Arnold's letters to him appear in Stanley's 'Life.' He gave up his practice at the chancery bar in 1846, and left London for Tickwood, near Wenlock, Shropshire.

Hull was an active member of the evangelical school of churchmen. He especially interested himself in liturgical reform. In 1828 he published `An Inquiry concerning the Means and Expedience of proposing and making any Changes in the Canons, Articles, and Liturgy, or in any of the Laws affecting the interests of the Church of England,' In 1831 appeared his learned pamphlet, entitled `The Disuse of the Athanasian Creed advisable in the present state of the United Church of England and Ireland.' A petition praying for the revision of the liturgy was drawn up by Hull and his brother, the Rev. John Hull, and presented to the House of Lords by Archbishop Whately on 26 May 1840. Perhaps the most interesting of his liturgical researches is the `Inquiry after the original Books of Common Prayer,' in his `Occasional Papers on Church Matters,' 1848. Hull had searched in vain for the manuscript copy of the Book of Common Prayer, originally attached to the Act of Uniformity of 1662, and known to exist as late as 1819. Dean Stanley, following Hull's suggestion, afterwards found the manuscript at Westminster. Hull opposed the tractarian movement, and actively supported Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Hampden [q.v.], defending him in a pamphlet issued in 1836. But his sense of justice made him averse to the proceedings against William George Ward [q.v.] in 1845, and he wrote `The Month of January. Oxford' (which reached a second edition), strongly pressing the rejection of the three measures proposed in convocation on 18 Feb. 1845. A high tory and ultra-protestant, Hull joined Sir Robert Inglis's committee formed in 1829 to oppose the return of Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert)