Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/286

Rh [Nichols's Lit. Anecd. viii. 471-2; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Doddridge's Letters, ed. Stedman; Gent. Mag. 1801, pt. i. pp. 101-3.]  HUNT, THOMAS (1802–1851), inventor of a method of curing stammering, was born in Dorsetshire in 1802, and is stated to have been educated at Winchester. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, with the intention of becoming a minister of the church of England, but the affliction of a fellow-collegian who suffered from stammering is said to have arrested his attention, and he left Cambridge without taking a degree in order to devote himself to the study and cure of defective utterance. He found that the lips, the tongue, the jaws, and the breath were in different cases the offending members. Being satisfied of his ability to cure stammering, he sought wider experience in a provincial tour, and finally in 1827 settled in Regent Street, London. He relied on simple common-sense directions. Each case was studied separately. Sometimes slow and sometimes rapid articulation was recommended to his patients, others were taught to place their tongues in particular positions, and others practised improved means of breathing. He held that not one case in fifty was the consequence of malorganisation, and objected to surgical operations. At an early date, 1828, he was patronised by Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., who sent him pupils for twenty-four years. When George Pearson, the chief witness in the case respecting the attempt on the life of Queen Victoria made by John Francis on 30 May 1842, was brought into court, he was incapable of giving utterance to his evidence, but after a fortnight's instruction from Hunt he spoke with perfect readiness, a fact certified by Sir Peter Laurie, the sitting magistrate. The ‘Lancet’ of 16 May 1846 made a severe attack on Hunt as an unlicensed practitioner. Hunt ably replied in the ‘Literary Gazette’ of 30 May. His leisure was spent in Dorset, where he cultivated land, and made agricultural improvements and experiments. In 1849 his numerous pupils, belonging to all professions, in commemoration of his twenty-two years' service, subscribed for his bust in marble, which was modelled by Joseph Durham [q. v.], and exhibited in the Royal Academy. He died at Godlingstone, near Swanage, Dorsetshire, on 18 Aug. 1851, leaving his practice to his son James [q. v.] His widow, Mary, died 25 Jan. 1855, aged 49.

[James Hunt's Treatise on Stammering, with Memoir of Thomas Hunt, 1854, pp. 27–69, with portrait; Illustrated London News, 23 Aug. 1851, p. 238; Fraser's Magazine, July 1859, pp. 1–14, by Charles Kingsley.]  HUNT, THOMAS FREDERICK (?) [sic] (1791–1831), architect, was born in 1791. For some years he was one of the labourers in trust or clerks of works attached to the board of works. At first he supervised the repairs at St. James's Palace, but in 1828 was transferred to Kensington Palace. He exhibited six architectural drawings at the Royal Academy between 1816 and 1828, and in 1815 designed the Burns mausoleum at Dumfries (view in McDiarmid's 'Picture of Dumfries and its Environs'). Hunt was fond of the Tudor style, and applied it extensively to domestic architecture. He died at Kensington Palace on 4 Jan. 1831. He published at London: 1. 'Half-a-dozen Hints on Picturesque Domestic Architecture,' 1825, 4to; 2nd edition, 1826; 3rd edition, enlarged, 1833. 2. 'Designs for Parsonage Houses, Alms Houses,' &c., 1827, 4to. 3. 'Architettura Campestre: displayed in Lodges, Gardeners' Houses, and other Buildings,' 1827, 4to. 4. 'Exemplars of Tudor Architecture,' 1830, 4to.

[Dictionary of Architecture (Arch. Publ. Soc.), vol. iv.; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School; Gent. Mag. 1831, i. 376; MacDowall's Hist. of Dumfries, p. 616.]  HUNT, THORNTON LEIGH (1810–1873), journalist, eldest son of James Henry Leigh Hunt [q. v.] and his wife, Marianne Kent, was born in London on 10 Sept. 1810. When Leigh Hunt was in gaol in 1813, his son was constantly with him, and his presence there occasioned Lamb's verses addressed 'To T.L.H., a child.' In 1822 Hunt went with his parents to Italy. His father intended to make him an artist, and with this view Hunt passed some time in a studio. He soon, however wearied of the scheme, but he obtained work as an art critic. By Laman Blanchard's influence he became, in 1836, director of the political department of the 'Constitutional,' of which Blanchard was editor; and when that newspaper collapsed he edited the 'North Cheshire Reformer,' and later, at Glasgow, the `Argus.' Returning to London in 1840, he regularly contributed for twenty years to the 'Spectator.' He also wrote for other newspapers, among them the 'Globe' and the 'Morning Chronicle,' and for magazines, and in 1850 helped his friend George Henry Lewes [q. v.] to establish the 'Leader.' In 1855 he joined the staff of the `Daily Telegraph,' writing principally on political subjects, and practically editing it. He died on 25 June 1873. Hunt married Miss Catherine Gliddon, and had a large family by her; but he was irregular in his domestic 