Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/308

 1826, but continued to take a warm interest in the institution, and was one of the treasurers from 1840 until 1845. Of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society he was elected treasurer in 1837.

Merriman died in Brook Street on 22 Nov. 1852. He married in 1799 Ann (1778–1831), only surviving daughter of his uncle, Samuel Merriman [q. v.] Their children were two daughters and a son, Samuel William John Merriman, M.D. (1814–1873), consulting physician to the Westminster General Dispensary (1847), physician to the Royal Infirmary for Children (1849), and author of ‘Arguments against the Indiscriminate Use of Chloroform in Midwifery,’ 8vo, London, 1848, and other treatises.

Merriman published in 1805 a pamphlet in vindication of vaccination entitled ‘Observations on some late Attempts to Depreciate the Value and Efficacy of Vaccine Inoculation.’ He had taken up his pen to prove the superior excellence of the smallpox inoculation, but as he wrote he found his arguments untenable. Essays and other papers of his were published in the ‘London Medical Repository,’ the ‘London Medical and Physical Journal,’ and the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions,’ but the medical works for which he was best known were his ‘Synopsis of the Various Kinds of Difficult Parturition,’ 12mo, London, 1814, which passed through several editions, and was translated into Italian, German, and French, and his edition of Dr. M. Underwood's ‘Treatise on the Diseases of Children,’ 8vo, London, 1827. During his tenure of office as examiner to the Society of Apothecaries (1831–7) he published in 1833, under the title of ‘The Validity of “Thoughts on Medical Reform,”’ an answer to a pamphlet of that title written, as was understood, by John Allen, M.D. (1771–1843) [q. v.] He also wrote a ‘Dissertation on the Retroversion of the Womb,’ 8vo, London, 1810.

Merriman illustrated with anecdotes his copies of ‘A Picture of the College of Physicians’ and Wadd's ‘Nugæ Chirurgicæ.’ He had also a fine collection of portraits of medical men. Philological subjects much interested him. To the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ and ‘Notes and Queries,’ then recently established, he contributed articles of real value. For the ‘London Journal of Medicine’ he wrote an historical retrospect of the science and practice of medicine under the title of ‘The First of October 1851, by an Octogenarian.’

Several portraits of Merriman were taken at different periods, two of which only have been engraved—one a private plate.

His first cousin, (1774–1839), surgeon, born on 26 Oct. 1774 at Marlborough, was son of Nathaniel Merriman by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Baverstock of Alton, Hampshire. In 1794 he came to London to complete his medical education, and was admitted member of the Royal College of Surgeons and of the Society of Apothecaries. He soon became associated in business at Kensington with Thomas Hardwick, whose niece Jane, daughter of John Hardwick of Weston, Herefordshire, he married. For many years he was general medical attendant on the Duchess of Kent, the Princess Victoria, and the Princess Sophia, at Kensington Palace; accordingly the Princess Victoria, as soon as she ascended the throne, conferred upon him and his two sons, John (1800–1881) and James Nathaniel (1806–1854), all of whom were in partnership at Kensington, the appointment of apothecary extraordinary to her majesty. He died on 17 June 1839 at Kensington Square (Gent. Mag. 1839, pt. ii. p. 204). His portrait was engraved by Newton from a painting by Lucas. 

MERRIOT, THOMAS (1589–1662), grammarian, born in 1589 at Steeple Langford in Wiltshire, entered Winchester College in 1601, and matriculated at New College, Oxford, on 14 Oct. 1608, where he devoted himself to the study of law, and was fellow from 1610 to 1624, and B.C.L. on 22 Nov. 1615. He taught for some time in the grammar school which then adjoined the college, until he was made vicar of Swalcliffe near Banbury, by the warden and fellows of New College on 15 Jan. 1623–1624. Previous to 1637 he appears to have had misunderstandings with his parishioners, who, in consequence, assessed him at a high rate for ship-money. Against this ‘very hard measure’ he petitioned the council of state on 10 May 1637. In 1642 his royalist sympathies brought him into difficulties with the parliament, and he was summoned to appear before the House of Commons on 26 July. His living was sequestered by the Westminster assembly, and on his petitioning the Committee for Plundered Ministers, he was granted (31 Aug. 1646) ‘a full and legal hearing’ by the committee of his own county. He resigned the vicarage of Swalcliffe on 10 March 1658–9 (cf. Collectanea Topographica et Genealog. iii. 184, 347). He died at Swalcliffe on 19 July