Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/113

  [Saddington's printed and manuscript writings; Muggleton's Acts and Letters; Ancient and Modern Muggletonians (Transactions of Liverpool Lit. and Phil. Soc. 4 April 1870); Smith's Bibliotheca Anti-Quakeriana, 1873, pp. 321 sq.]  SADDLER, JOHN (1813–1892), line engraver, was born on 14 Aug. 1813. He was a pupil of George Cooke (1781–1834) [q. v.], the engraver of Turner's ‘Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England,’ and it is related that on one occasion he was sent to Turner with the trial proof of a plate of which he had himself engraved a considerable portion. Scanning the plate with his eagle eye, Turner asked ‘Who did this plate, my boy?’ ‘Mr. Cooke, sir,’ answered Saddler, to which Turner replied, ‘Go and tell your master he is bringing you on very nicely, especially in lying.’ Later on he engraved the vessels in the plate of Turner's ‘Fighting Téméraire,’ the sky of which was the joint production of R. Dickens and J. T. Willmore, A.R.A., and he used to say that Turner took a keener interest in the engraving of this than of any others of his works. He assisted Thomas Landseer in several of his engravings from the works of Sir Edwin Landseer, especially ‘The Twins,’ ‘The Children of the Mist,’ ‘Marmozettes,’ and ‘Braemar,’ and also in the plate of the ‘Horse Fair,’ after Rosa Bonheur. Among works executed entirely by him are ‘The Lady of the Woods,’ after John MacWhirter, R.A.; ‘The Christening Party,’ after A. Bellows, engraved for the ‘Art Journal’ of 1872; ‘Shrimpers’ and ‘Shrimping,’ after H. W. Mesdag, and many book illustrations after Millais, Poynter, Tenniel, Gustave Doré, and others. He also engraved plates of ‘Christ Church, Hampshire,’ after J. Nash, and ‘Durham Cathedral,’ after H. Dawson, for the ‘Stationers' Almanack,’ and some other views and portraits, and at the time of his death was engaged on the portrait of John Walter, from the picture begun by Frank Holl, R.A., and finished by Hubert Herkomer, R.A. He exhibited a few works at the Society of British Artists, and others at the Royal Academy between 1862 and 1883.

Saddler was for many years the treasurer of the Artists' Amicable Fund, and was thus brought into contact with most of the artists of his time, and many and racy were the anecdotes of them which he was wont to tell. In 1882 he left London, and went to reside at Wokingham in Berkshire, where on 29 March 1892 he committed suicide by hanging himself during an attack of temporary insanity.

[Times, 7 April 1892; Reading Mercury, 2 April 1892; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1862–83.]  SADINGTON, ROBERT  (fl. 1340), chancellor, was no doubt a native of Sadington in Leicestershire, and perhaps a son of John de Sadington, a valet of Isabella, wife of Edward II, and custos of the hundred of Gertre [Gartree] in that county (Abbrev. Rot. Orig. i. 243). He may be the Robert de Sadington who was named by Joan de Multon to seek and receive her dower in chancery in January 1317 (Cal. Close Rolls, Edw. II, ii. 451). He appears as an advocate in the year-books from 1329 to 1336. In 1329 he was on a commission to sell the corn from certain manors then in the king's hands. On 18 Feb. 1331 he was on a commission of oyer and terminer to inquire into the oppressions of the ministers of the late king in Rutland and Northamptonshire (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edw. III, ii. 134). In the following years he frequently appears on similar commissions. On 12 Feb. 1332 he was placed on the commission of peace for Leicestershire and Rutland, and on 25 June 1332 was a commissioner for the assessment of the tallage in the counties of Leicester, Warwick, and Worcester (ib. ii. 287, 312). Previously to 8 Aug. 1334 he was justice in eyre of the forest of Pickering and of the forests in Lancashire (ib. iii. 1, 4, 172, 261). On 31 Dec. 1334 he was appointed on an inquiry into the waterways between Peterborough and Spalding and Lynn, and, on 10 July 1335, on an inquiry into the collection of taxes of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and Rutland (ib. iii. 70, 202). During 1336 he was a justice of gaol delivery at Lancaster and Warwick (ib. iii. 300, 324). On 20 March 1334 he was appointed chief baron of the exchequer (ib. iii. 400), and appears to have been the first chief baron who was summoned to parliament by that title. On 25 July 1339 he was acting as lieutenant for the treasurer, William de Zouche, and from 2 May to 21 June 1340 was himself treasurer, but retained his office as chief baron. On 29 Sept. 1343 he was appointed chancellor, being the third layman to hold this position during the reign. He resigned the great seal on 26 Oct. 1345. The reason for his resignation is not given, but the fact that he was reappointed chief baron on 8 Dec. 1345 seems to preclude the suggestion of Lord Campbell, that it was due to inefficiency. He had been a trier of petitions for England in the parliaments of 1341 and 1343, and was a trier of petitions from the clergy in 1347 (Rolls of Parliament, ii. 126, 135, 164). In 1346 Sadington was one of the guardians of