Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/202

  notices; Imp. Dict. of Univ. Biog. art. ‘Bellini;’ Gossip of the Century; the Theatre; also letters, papers, and information from Mr. Palfrey Burrell.]  MARRAT, WILLIAM (1772–1852), mathematician and topographer, born at Sibsey, Lincolnshire, on 6 April 1772, was for fifty years a contributor to mathematical serials, such as the ‘Ladies' and Gentlemen's Diary,’ the ‘Receptacle,’ the ‘Student,’ and the ‘Leeds Correspondent.’ He was self-taught, had an extensive acquaintance with literature and science, and was a good German and French scholar. While residing at Boston, Lincolnshire, he for some years followed the trade of a printer and publisher. At other times he was a teacher of mathematics not only in Lincolnshire, but in New York, where he lived from 1817 to 1820, and at Liverpool, where he settled in 1821. His first work was ‘An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Mechanics,’ Boston, 1810, 8vo, pp. 468. In 1811–12 he, in conjunction with P. Thompson, conducted ‘The Enquirer, or Literary, Mathematical, and Philosophical Repository,’ Boston. During 1814–16 he wrote ‘The History of Lincolnshire,’ which came out in parts, and after three volumes, 12mo, had been published, it was stopped, as Marrat alleged, through Sir Joseph Banks's refusal to allow access to his papers. In 1816 his ‘Historical Description of Stamford,’ 12mo, was published at Lincoln. ‘The Scientific Journal,’ edited by him, came out with the imprint ‘Perth Amboy, N. J. and New York,’ 1818, nine numbers, 8vo. An anonymous ‘Geometrical System of Conic Sections,’ Cambridge, 1822, is ascribed to Marrat in the catalogue of the Liverpool Free Library. He compiled ‘Lunar Tables,’ Liverpool, 1823, and wrote ‘The Elements of Mechanical Philosophy,’ 1825, 8vo. About this time he compiled the ‘Liverpool Tide Table,’ and was a contributor to ‘Blackwood's Magazine.’ From 1833 to 1836 he was mathematical tutor in a school at Exeter, but on the death of his wife he returned to Liverpool.

He died suddenly at Liverpool on 26 March 1852, and was buried at the necropolis near that city. His son, Frederick P. Marrat, is an accomplished conchologist and zoologist.

 MARREY or MAREE, JOHN (d. 1407), Carmelite, derived his name from his native village, Marr, four miles from Doncaster. He entered the Carmelite friary at Doncaster, where, according to Leland, he studied successively literæ humaniores, philosophy, and theology, and took the degree of doctor of decrees. He acquired a great reputation as a scholastic theologian, disputant, and preacher, and is recorded by the Abbot Tritheim (De Ecclesiæ Scriptoribus, cap. 49) to have been thought 'the most acute theologian in the Oxonian palæstra.' Edward III in 1376 appointed him, with some other doctors of law, to appease the quarrel between the faculties of arts and theology and the civil and canon lawyers at Oxford, who had already come to blows (, Antiquities of the University of Oxford, i. 490, ed. Gutch). He is said to have 'converted or confounded the turbulent and seditious followers of Wiclif' (, Scriptoribus). Marrey was for a long period head of the Carmelite convent at Doncaster, where he died on 18 March 1407; he was buried in the choir of its chapel. He wrote, besides scholastic theology, treatises against the Wiclifites and upon the epigrams of Martial, which were known to Bale. The Joannes Marreis, prebendary of Shareshill, Staffordshire, whom Tanner is inclined to identify with Marrey, seems to be another person (, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 606, 615).

 MARRIOTT, CHARLES (1811–1858), divine, born at Church Lawford, near Rugby, on 24 Aug. 1811, was son of John Marriott [q. v.], rector of the parish. John Marriott also held the curacy of Broad Clyst in Devonshire; and, on account of Mrs. Marriott's delicate health, chiefly resided there during his son's early days. Charles received the rudiments of his education at the village school. Both his parents died in his boyhood and he was privately educated at Rugby by two aunts. He spent one term as a 'townboy' at Rugby School, but his delicate health led to his removal. In March 1820 Marriott entered at Exeter College, Oxford, and in October 1829 he won an open scholarship at Balliol. George Moberly, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, was his college tutor, and exercised great influence over him. In his undergraduate days be showed precocious ability and intense application, and when in the 