Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/269

Soowthern B.A. 1545, and proceeded M.A. 1549. He became doctor of civil and canon laws probably at some university on the continent. The bursars' accounts of Caius College show that he was resident at Gonville Hall, probably as a fellow, from 1548 to 1555. In 1561 he became regius professor of civil law, and in June of that year was admitted fellow of Trinity Hall. He would not conform to the protestant religion, and, leaving Cambridge, went abroad. His successor in the professorship, William Clerke, was appointed in 1563. Soone is said to have resided at Paris, Dol, Freiburg, and Padua, and to have been a professor of law for some time at Louvain (but cf., Fasti Acad. Lovan.). From Louvain he went, in all probability, to Antwerp, where he seems to have acted as assistant to Abraham Ortelius [q. v.] In 1572 he was at Cologne, where he published ‘Gulielmi Sooni Vantesdeni Auditor sive Pomponius Mela disputator de Situ Orbis’ (British Museum). Part of this rare book, the ‘Novi incolæ orbis terrarum,’ is copied from that of Arnold Mylius and published by Ortelius in the 1570 edition of the ‘Theatrum.’ Accordingly Ortelius complained, and Soone offered somewhat jesuitical explanations dated from Cologne, 31 Aug. 1572. Soone also copied the map of Cambridge which Richard Lyne [q. v.] had drawn for Caius's ‘History of the University’ (1574), and published his copy in Braun and Hogenberg's ‘Civitates Orbis terrarum’ (1575?). With this map went a description of the university (cf. translation in Gent. Mag. xlvi. 201). From Cologne Soone is said to have passed to Rome, and while there the pope made him podestà, of what town is unknown.

[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 350; Willis and Clark's Arch. Hist. of the Univ. of Cambridge, pp. i, xcvi, &c.; Hessel's Eccles. Lond. Batav. tom. i.; Epistolæ Ortelianæ, p. 97.]  SOOWTHERN, JOHN (d. 1584), poet. [See .]

SOPWITH, THOMAS (1803–1879), mining engineer, son of Jacob Sopwith (1770–1829), by his wife Isabella, daughter of Matthew Lowes, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 3 Jan. 1803. His family had dwelt in Tyneside for three hundred years, and his father was a builder and cabinet-maker in Newcastle-on-Tyne. Early accustomed to work involving drawing and measurement, Thomas took up both land-surveying and engineering. In 1826 he published ‘A Historical and Descriptive Account of All Saints' Church in Newcastle-upon-Tyne’ (Newcastle, 8vo), and soon became partner to Mr. Dickinson, a surveyor at Alston. His best-known book is his ‘Treatise on Isometrical Drawing,’ published in 1834 (Newcastle, 8vo), of which there were several editions. Meanwhile mining work, with occasional railway surveys, occupied much of his attention. His association in a Northumbrian survey with William Smith (1769–1839) [q. v.], the founder of stratigraphical geology, widened his interests; and he was instrumental, after the meeting of the British Association in 1838, in inducing the government to found the Mining Record office (Brit. Assoc. 8th Rep. p. xxiii). In the same year he made a mining survey in co. Clare, and in 1843 was employed on the development of railways in Belgium. He called attention to the scientific importance of recording the geological features exposed in the cuttings of railways; and the British Association, at his initiative, made a grant in 1840 for the purpose. In June 1845 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and accepted a month later the chief agency for Mr. Wentworth B. Beaumont's lead-mines in Northumberland and Durham. He thus became especially a mining engineer, and went to live at Allenheads; but his work on the estate included the erection and superintendence of workmen's dwellings and schools, the foundation of libraries and benefit societies, and even the organisation of a system of local education. Sopwith's width of mind and open-heartedness were admirably suited to these complex duties; his views on public affairs were similarly unprejudiced, as may be seen from passages in his diaries, relating to his tour in Ireland (Life, pp. 157–61), to primary education (ib. pp. 314–16), and to the election of labour members to parliament (ib. p. 352). As his work developed he made many scientific friends—among them Dean Buckland, Robert Stephenson, Faraday, and Warington W. Smyth. In 1857 he was created an honorary M.A. of Durham University, and, while resigning his post at Allenheads, accepted the London agency for the same mines. He retired in March 1871, and died in his house, 103 Victoria Street, Westminster, on 16 Jan. 1879, being buried in Norwood cemetery.

Sopwith married thrice: first, Mary Dickenson in 1828, who died in 1829; secondly, Jane Scott in 1831, who died in 1855; and thirdly, Anne Potter in 1858. His daughter Ursula married, on 11 June 1878, David Chadwick, M.P. A good photographic portrait of Sopwith in later years is given in Sir B. W. Richardson's ‘Life.’

To students Sopwith will always be known by the beautiful series of wooden models of geological structures, illustrating the 