Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/235

 same year he published in London ‘A Short History of the Efforts for the Conversion of the Popish Natives of Ireland,’ which contains among much interesting information an account of the first teachers of Irish in Trinity College, Dublin. An appendix to the second edition, which came out also in 1712, contains paragraphs of English printed in the Irish character to display its resemblance to Roman type and the ease with which it may be read. He enlisted the aid of the new Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in his project of printing and distributing Irish bibles, and a committee was appointed by the Irish House of Commons for furthering his plans. But, though at first supported by the Duke of Ormonde and Sir Robert Southwell, Richardson's efforts subsequently excited opposition in the Upper House of Convocation and elsewhere as likely to injure the English interest in Ireland. His money losses in printing were considerable, but, although recommended more than once for a benefice by King, he received only the small deanery of Kilmacduagh, worth about 120l. a year (July 1731).

He published in 1727 ‘The Great Folly and Superstition and Idolatry of Pilgrimages in Ireland,’ which treats principally of the pilgrimages to Lough Derg, co. Donegal, which he had visited. His love for Irish stories is shown by his relation of a grotesque local legend of Conan Mael.

Richardson died in Archdeacon John Cranston's house at Clogher, 9 Sept. 1747.



RICHARDSON, JOHN (1667–1753), quaker, son of William Richardson (1624–1679) of North Cave, Yorkshire, was born there in 1667. The father, who joined the quakers on hearing Fox and Dewsbury preach, was often fined and imprisoned.

The lad, after solitary wanderings, became a convinced quaker when only sixteen. He managed a grazing farm for his mother and five children, but, on her remarriage with a presbyterian, was turned out of the house. He began preaching at eighteen, having bound himself to a weaver, but after an illness he devoted all his time to itinerant preaching, and before he was twenty-seven had travelled four times all over England and twice through Wales. He settled in Bridlington, and married Priscilla Canaby, by whom he had five children. In November 1700 he sailed for America. Arrived in Maryland, he procured ‘a little white horse’ which carried him over four thousand miles. He stayed at Pennsbury with [q. v.], was present at a council with Indians, disputed publicly with [q. v.] at Lynn, near Boston, met [q. v.] on Long Island, and in Maryland preached before the governor and his wife, Lord and Lady Baltimore. Upon his return to Yorkshire, about 1703, he married as his second wife Anne Robinson, a Yorkshire woman of good family. She died in 1711, and Richardson travelled to Ireland and again to America in 1731. He died at Hutton-in-the-Hole, Yorkshire, on 2 June 1753, and was buried at Kirby-Moorside.

Richardson's journal, ‘An Account of the Life of that Ancient Servant of Christ,’ &c., appeared in London, 1757, 8vo (6th ed. 12mo. 1843; Friends' Library, Philadelphia, 1840, iv.). Although he met and disputed with all creeds, his book speaks harshly of none.



RICHARDSON, JOHN (fl. 1790), writer on brewing, chiefly lived at Hull, although he had studied brewing in many other parts of the kingdom. He is the first writer to treat scientifically of the processes of brewing. His earliest work consisted of an ‘Advertisement of Proposals for teaching his Method of brewing Porter and Pale Beers.’ This appeared in 1777. He next issued ‘Statical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing; or a Treatise on the Application and Use of the Saccharometer’ (London, 1784); and lastly, ‘The Principles of Brewing’ (Hull, 1798, 8vo; 3rd edit. York, 1805). In these works he dwells on the utility of the thermometer and saccharometer in brewing, instead of determining quantities by rule of thumb. He was the first to bring to the knowledge of brewers the use and value of the saccharometer, as Combrune in 1762 had first recommended the thermometer.



RICHARDSON, JOHN (1741–1811?), orientalist, born in 1741, was son of George Richardson of Edinburgh, by Jean, daughter of George Watson of Woodend, co. Stirling, and descended from Sir James Richardson, of Smeaton, grandson of (d. 1578) [q. v.] Sir James Richardson, reputed eighth baronet of Belmont, Jamaica (d. 1778), and Sir George Richardson, reputed ninth baronet (d. 1792), were his brothers. In 1767 he joined the Society of Antiquaries. He matriculated from Wadham College, Oxford, on 24 Nov. 1775, and was received as a