Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/45

 captain of the Orpheus frigate, but a few months later he received his post rank from the admiralty, dated 22 Dec. 1796, and was ordered to return to England. In January 1800 he was appointed to the Inflexible, which, without her lower-deck guns, was employed during the next two years on transport service in the Mediterranean. She was paid off in March 1802, and in November Page commissioned the Caroline frigate, in which in the following summer he went to the East Indies, where he captured several of the enemy's privateers, and especially two in the Bay of Bengal, for which service the merchants of Bombay and of Madras severally voted him a present of five hundred guineas. In February 1805 he was transferred to the Trident, as flag-captain to Vice-admiral Rainier, with whom he returned to England in October. In 1809–10 Page commanded the sea-fencibles of the Harwich district, and from 1812 to 1815 the Puissant guardship at Spithead. He had no further service afloat, but became, in course of seniority, rear-admiral on 12 Aug. 1819, vice-admiral 22 July 1830, admiral 23 Aug. 1841. During his retirement he resided principally at Ipswich, and there he died on 3 Oct. 1845. He had married Elizabeth, only child of John Herbert of Totness in Devonshire; she died without issue in 1834.

[Statement of Services in Public Record Office; O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. i. 767; Ralfe's Nav. Biogr. iv. 256.] 

PAGE, DAVID (1814–1879), geologist, was born on 24 Aug. 1814 at Lochgelly, Fifeshire, where his father was a mason and builder. After passing through the parochial school, he was sent, at the age of fourteen, to the university of St. Andrews, to be educated for the ministry. He obtained various academic distinctions; but the attractions of natural science proved superior to those of theology, so that when his university course was ended he supported himself by lecturing and contributing to periodical literature, acting for a time as editor of a Fifeshire newspaper. In 1843 he became ‘scientific editor’ to Messrs. W. & R. Chambers in Edinburgh, and while thus employed wrote much himself. In July 1871 he was appointed professor of geology in the Durham University College of Physical Science at Newcastle-on-Tyne. But his health already was failing, owing to the insidious advance of paralysis, and he died at Newcastle on 9 March 1879, leaving a widow, two sons, and one daughter.

Page was elected F.G.S. in 1853, was president of the Geological Society of Edinburgh in 1863 and 1865, and was a member of various other societies. In 1867 the university of St. Andrews honoured him with the degree of LL.D.

He contributed some fourteen papers to scientific periodicals, among them those of the Geological and the Physical Society of Edinburgh and the British Association. But his strength lay not so much in the direction of original investigation as in that of making science popular; for he was not only an excellent lecturer, but also the author of numerous useful text-books on geological subjects. Among the best known of them—at least twelve in number—are ‘The Earth's Crust’ (1864, Edinburgh; 6th edit. 1872), the text-books (both elementary and advanced) of ‘Geology’ and of ‘Physical Geography;’ these have gone through numerous editions, and ‘Geology for General Readers’ (1866; 12th edit. 1888). The ‘Handbook of Geological Terms’ (1859) was a useful one in its day. Page is also supposed to have aided Robert Chambers [q. v.] in writing the ‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.’ He did real service in awakening an interest in geology among the people, especially in the north; for, as it was said in an obituary notice, by his clear method and graphic illustrations ‘geology lost half its terrors by losing all its dryness.’ Industrious and unwearied, with literary tastes and some poetic power, he was a good teacher, and was generally respected.

[Obituary Notices in Nature, xix. 444; Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1880, Proc. p. 39; Trans. Edin. Geol. Soc. iii. p. 220.] 

PAGE, FRANCIS (1661?–1741), judge, the second son of Nicholas Page, vicar of Bloxham, Oxfordshire, was admitted to the Inner Temple on 12 June 1685, and called to the bar on 2 June 1690. In February 1705 he appeared as one of the counsel for the five Aylesbury men who had been committed to Newgate by the House of Commons for the legal proceedings which they had taken against the returning officer for failing to record their votes (, State Trials, 1812, xiv. 850). The House of Commons thereupon resolved that Page and the other counsel who had pleaded on behalf of the prisoners upon the return of the habeas corpus were guilty of a breach of privilege, and ordered their committal to the custody of the sergeant-at-arms (Journals of the House of Commons, xiv. 552). Page, however, evaded arrest, and parliament was soon afterwards prorogued in order to prevent a collision between the two