Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/213

 berland, and were defeated by Kirkby and Robert Oggill; the bishop, who distinguished himself by his valour, was unhorsed during the engagement and nearly captured. According to Geoffrey le Baker, Kirkby was also one of the English leaders at the battle of Neville's Cross on 17 Oct. 1346 (p. 87, ed. Thompson). In 1348 he was sent to escort Joan, daughter of Edward III, to her affianced husband, Alfonso of Castile. Kirkby died in 1352; permission to elect his successor was granted on 3 Dec. 1352. His episcopate was a troublous one, owing to the frequent Scottish raids. He also suffered from disorders within his own borders, and on at least three occasions, in 1333, 1337, and 1342, was attacked by brigands in the neighbourhood of his cathedral city (, Letters from Northern Registers, pp. 364–8, Rolls Ser.) As a consequence he was frequently compelled to hold his ordinations outside his diocese. Kirkby is said to have been engaged in many disputes with his chapter and archdeacons, and to have been excommunicated for the non-payment of tenths on certain lands to the pope. 

KIRKBY, JOHN (1705–1754), divine, son of the Rev. Thomas Kirkby, is stated in the register of St. John's College, Cambridge, to have been born at ‘Lownsborough,’ i.e. Londesborough, Yorkshire, but he says himself that he was a native of Cumberland. He was educated at home by his father, and proceeded, 4 May 1723, aged 18, to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1726 and M.A. 1745. According to his own account he began life as a poor curate in Cumberland. On 8 Dec. 1739 he was appointed vicar of Waldershare in Kent, and on 19 Nov. 1743 rector of Blackmanstone, Romney Marsh. ‘A Demonstration from Christian Principles that the present regulation of ecclesiastical revenues in the Church of England is contrary to the design of Christianity,’ which he published on behalf of the poorer clergy at Canterbury in 1743, is said to have excluded him from further preferment (cf. manuscript note in Brit. Mus. copy). To eke out his slender income he in 1744 became tutor to Edward Gibbon, then a boy of seven. He held, while at Putney with the Gibbons, some clerical appointment, but lost it by unluckily omitting the name of King George in the morning prayers, and so irritating his patron (, ‘Memoirs’ in Miscell. Works, i. 20). Gibbon liked and respected him, says that he had thought much on the subjects of languages and education, and seems to have regretted his hasty departure. Kirkby died 21 May 1754.

Kirkby's chief works are: 1. ‘The Capacity and Extent of the Human Understanding, exemplified in the extraordinary case of Automathes, a young nobleman … accidentally left in his infancy upon a desert island,’ London, 1745, 12mo; an attempt to illustrate the growth of men's ideas in a state of nature. A second edition appeared at Dublin in 1746. Gibbon describes it as a poor performance, and as a plagiarism of well-known romances. It seems largely borrowed from the ‘History of Autonous’ (1736). It is reprinted in Weber's ‘Popular Romances’ (Edinb. 1812, pp. 583–638). 2. ‘The Impostor detected, or the Counterfeit Saint turn'd inside out,’ London, 1750; a bitter attack on ‘those diabolical seducers called Methodists.’ 3. ‘An Effectual and Easy Demonstration of the Truth of the coequal Trinity of the Godhead,’ London, 1752. An introduction of thirteen pages gives an account of a ‘new system of logic’ projected by Kirkby. Kirkby also published in 1734, under the title ‘The Usefulness of Mathematical Learning explained,’ a translation from the Latin of the mathematical lectures of Dr. Isaac Barrow, and Gibbon credits him with a Latin and English grammar (1746), of which he speaks highly. De Morgan mentions as by Kirkby ‘Arithmetical Institutions, containing a Compleat System of Arithmetic, Natural, Logarithmetical, and Algebraical,’ 4to (Arithmetical Books, pp. 67, 71). 

KIRKBY, RICHARD (d. 1703), captain in the navy, passed his examination for the rank of lieutenant under order of 28 March 1689. On 10 July 1690 he was appointed second lieutenant of the St. Michael, and was shortly afterwards promoted to be commander of the Success, employed in the convoy of the coasting trade. In 1694 he was appointed to the Southampton, with Admiral Russell in the Mediterranean, one of the ships present at the capture of the Content and Trident on 18–19 Jan. 1694–5, but excluded from sharing in the prize-money [see ]. In 1696 the Southampton returned to England, and was sent out to the West Indies, where Kirkby is said to have ‘behaved in a way very much to his credit’. The Southampton, however, does not appear to have been either a