Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/163

  Church.’ In 1846 he delivered at Oxford the Bampton lecture on ‘The Witness of the Spirit with our Spirit.’ In 1847 the colonial sees of Capetown, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Newcastle were founded, and Short was offered the choice of Adelaide and Newcastle. He chose the former, and was consecrated (29 June) and created D.D. of Oxford on 16 June 1847. He sailed in September, and reached his diocese in December. There were on his arrival but five clergy in South Australia, and the bishop's difficulties were further increased in 1851 by the discontinuance of the vote for maintenance of public worship. The young diocese was thus cast entirely upon its own resources. But Short visited England in 1853, found that the diocese could be organised with a constitution of its own, and proceeded to set its affairs in order. In this he was completely successful, and showed himself a very capable administrator. He did his best to meet the needs of scattered communities in the bush, was keenly interested in work for the aborigines, did much for the organisation of education in the colony, and secured the building of Adelaide Cathedral. He came to England for the Lambeth conference of 1878. Short was attacked by heart disease in 1881, and resigned the see. He left Australia in 1882, amid general expressions of respect, and took up his residence in London; but his malady returned, and he died on 5 Oct. 1883. He published a volume of sermons in 1838, besides his Bampton lectures in 1846.

His eldest brother, (1799–1857), born in 1799, joined the Coldstream guards as ensign in 1814, was present with his regiment at Quatre Bras and in the defence of Hougomont at Waterloo, and served in the army of occupation. In 1837 he left the army as captain and lieutenant-colonel, and entered mercantile pursuits. In 1852 he went to live at Odiham in Hampshire, where, as in London, he was conspicuous for his religious and philanthropic activity. He published treatises on the duties of the soldier, which had a wide circulation. He died at Odiham on 19 Jan. 1857.

[F. T. Whittington's Augustus Short, First Bishop of Adelaide, 1888; Times, 8 Oct. 1883; Gent. Mag. 1857, i. 364; Welch's Alumni Westmon. p. 486; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Mennell's Australasian Biography.]

 SHORT, JAMES (1710–1768), optician, was the son of William Short, a joiner in Edinburgh, where he was born on 10 June 1710. At the age of ten, both parents having died, he was placed in Heriot's Hospital, and, after two years, his talents caused him to be sent to the Edinburgh high school. Here he gained distinction in classics, entered the university of Edinburgh in 1726, and in due course graduated M.A. His relatives aspiring to the ministry for him, he proceeded to the divinity hall, and qualified in 1731 for a preacher in the church of Scotland. Attendance at the mathematical lectures of Colin Maclaurin [q. v.], however, diverted his purpose, never strong. Maclaurin noticed his abilities, permitted him in 1732 to use his college rooms for an optical workshop, and in 1734 informed James Jurin [q. v.]: ‘Mr. Short, who had begun with making glass specula, is now employing himself to improve the metallic. By taking care of the figure he is enabled to give them larger apertures than others have done; and upon the whole, they surpass in perfection all that I have seen of other workmen.’

Short had cleared 500l. by the business when, in 1736, Queen Caroline (1683–1737) [q. v.] summoned him to London to give lessons in mathematics to William Augustus, duke of Cumberland (1721–1765) [q. v.] While in London he effected some improvements in his methods, which he vigorously carried out on his return to Edinburgh, late in the same year. On 24 March 1737 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and in 1739 made a survey of the Orkneys for James Douglas, fourteenth earl of Morton [q. v.] He then finally settled in London, but frequently revisited Edinburgh, for the last time in 1766. He died of intestinal mortification at Newington Butts, London, on 14 June 1768, leaving a fortune of 20,000l.

Short was the first to give to specula a true parabolic figure, and the lasting quality of the polish which he imparted to them is proved by the good condition of some which still survive. But, through jealousy of his inventions, he had his tools destroyed before his death. The Gregorian form of construction was almost exclusively employed by him; a Cassegrain, owned at one time by Alexander Aubert [q. v.], formed a well-known exception. His most celebrated instrument was a Gregorian of eighteen inches aperture, completed in 1752 for the king of Spain. The price paid was 1,200l. He made besides several reflectors of twelve-feet focus, for one of which he received from Lord Thomas Spencer in 1743 six hundred guineas. A nine-inch Newtonian by him at Greenwich was remarkable for being no more than eight diameters, or six feet long. It, however, compared unfavourably in performance with William Herschel's seven-foot. 