Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/390

  at the Royal Academy of Music. In her late years she was almost blind.

A portrait of her, in oils, is in the Garrick Club, and pictures from photographs are numerous.

author:Edward Stirling or Lambert (1809–1894), her first husband, born in April 1809, at Thame in Oxfordshire, was originally a banker's clerk, and took to the stage at the Pavilion in 1828, becoming a favourite in the country. At Birmingham he produced his first play, ‘Sadak and Kalasrade,’ a spectacular drama, the first of some two hundred pieces that have been seen at various London theatres. He was an actor stage manager under Yates at the Adelphi, and also at Covent Garden (where he produced ‘Antigone’), the Surrey, Olympic, Lyceum, and Drury Lane. In addition to patriotic pieces, farces, burlesques, melodramas, and adaptations from Charles Dickens (including versions of ‘Nicholas Nickleby,’ ‘The Cricket on the Hearth,’ ‘Old Curiosity Shop,’ and ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’), he is responsible for ‘Old Drury Lane—Fifty Years' Recollections,’ 2 vols. London, 1881, 8vo.

 STIRLING, ROBERT (1790–1878), divine and inventor, was born in Perthshire in 1790. He was licensed by the presbytery of Dumbarton on 4 July 1815, and, being presented to the second charge at Kilmarnock in Ayrshire by the commissioner for the Duke of Portland, was ordained on 19 Sept. 1816. On 20 Jan. 1824 he was translated to Galston, Ayrshire, where he remained for upwards of fifty-three years. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from the university of St. Andrews on 11 Jan. 1840. On 30 May 1842 he was suspended with nine others by the general assembly from his judicial functions in the presbytery and the other higher courts for holding communion with the deposed ministers of Strathbogie, but was reinstated on 1 March 1843. After two years of failing health he died at Galston on 6 June 1878. He married Jane, eldest daughter of William Rankine, wine merchant, Galston, on 10 July 1819. By her he had three sons, Patrick and William, civil engineers, and David, minister of Craigie in Perthshire.

On 16 Nov. 1816 he took out a patent (No. 4081) for an engine which produced motive power by means of heated air, and on 1 Feb. 1827 and 1 Oct. 1840 he took further patents (Nos. 5456, 8652) of the same nature. One engine of 45-horse power was actually constructed on his model and employed for three years in driving machinery at the Dundee foundry. He also constructed many optical and other scientific instruments.

 STIRLING, THOMAS (1733–1808), bart., general, born on 8 Oct. 1733, was second son of Sir Henry Stirling, bart. (1688–1753) of Ardoch, Perthshire, by Anne, third daughter of Thomas Gordon, admiral of the Russian fleet and governor of Cronstadt. He received a commission from the Prince of Orange on 11 Oct. 1747, and served ten years in the Scots brigade (afterwards the 94th), which was then in the Dutch service. On 24 March 1757 he was made captain in the 42nd highlanders, having raised a company for that regiment. He served with it in the conquest of Canada, the capture of Martinique in 1759, and of the Havannah in 1762. In 1765 he was sent to take possession of the Illinois country ceded to Great Britain by the peace of 1763.

The 42nd returned from North America in 1767, but was sent back thither in 1776, when the war of independence had begun. Stirling had become major on 12 Dec. 1770, and lieutenant-colonel on 7 Sept. 1771, in the regiment; and he raised its strength from 350 to 1,200 men in five months in 1775. Under his command it took a very active part in the war, and was especially distinguished at the storming of Fort Washington on 16 Nov. 1776. Stirling and his men were thanked in general orders. They were again thanked for the capture of a post at Elizabethtown in February 1779. On the 19th of that month Stirling was appointed aide-de-camp to the king and colonel in the army. In the attempt upon Springfield (Massachusetts) in June 1780 he commanded a brigade. His thigh was broken by a shot, but he refused to allow amputation, as it would disable him for active service. Of this, however, he saw no more. He was given the colonelcy of the 71st foot on 13 Feb. 1782, but it was reduced soon afterwards. On 20 Nov. he was promoted major-general, and on 13 Jan. 1790 he was made colonel of the 41st foot. He became lieutenant-general on 3 May 1796, and general on 1 Jan. 1801. In 1794 he had bought the estate of Strowan, Perthshire, and he was made a baronet for his services. By the death of his brother, Sir William