Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/20

 1813 to 1825 he was clerk in a London bank. After a two years’ residence in Birmingham, he was appointed manager of the Kilkenny branch of the Provincial Bank of Ireland, and in 1829 he was promoted to the Waterford branch. In 1834 he became manager of the London and Westminster Bank; and he did much to develop the system of joint-stock banking. On more than one occasion he rendered valuable services to the joint-stock banks by his evidence before committees of the House of Commons; and, on the renewal of the bank charter in 1844, he procured the insertion of a clause granting to joint-stock banks the power of suing by their public officer, and also the right of accepting bills at less than six months’ date. In 1846 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He died in London on the 8th of August 1863. The Gilbart lectures on banking at King’s College are called after him.

GILBERT, ALFRED (1854–), British sculptor and goldsmith, born in London, was the son of Alfred Gilbert, musician. He received his education mainly in Paris (École des Beaux-Arts, under Cavelier), and studied in Rome and Florence where the significance of the Renaissance made a lasting impression upon him and his art. He also worked in the studio of Sir J. Edgar Boehm, R.A. His first work of importance was the charming group of the “Mother and Child,” then “The Kiss of Victory,” followed by “Perseus Arming” (1883), produced directly under the influence of the Florentine masterpieces he had studied. Its success was great, and Lord Leighton forthwith commissioned “Icarus,” which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884, along with a remarkable “Study of a Head,” and was received with general applause. Then followed “The Enchanted Chair,” which, along with many other works deemed by the artist incomplete or unworthy of his powers, was ultimately broken by the sculptor’s own hand. The next year Mr Gilbert was occupied with the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, in Piccadilly, London, a work of great originality and beauty, yet shorn of some of the intended effect through restrictions put upon the artist. In 1888 was produced the statue of H.M. Queen Victoria, set up at Winchester, in its main design and in the details of its ornamentation the most remarkable work of its kind produced in Great Britain, and perhaps, it may be added, in any other country in modern times. Other statues of great beauty, at once novel in treatment and fine in design, are those set up to Lord Reay in Bombay, and John Howard at Bedford (1898), the highly original pedestal of which did much to direct into a better channel what are apt to be the eccentricities of what is called the “New Art” School. The sculptor rose to the full height of his powers in his “Memorial to the Duke of Clarence,” and his fast developing fancy and imagination, which are the main characteristics of all his work, are seen in his “Memorial Candelabrum to Lord Arthur Russell” and “Memorial Font to the son of the 4th Marquess of Bath.” Gilbert’s sense of decoration is paramount in all he does, and although in addition to the work already cited he produced busts of extraordinary excellence of Cyril Flower, John R. Clayton (since broken up by the artist—the fate of much of his admirable work), G. F. Watts, Sir Henry Tate, Sir George Birdwood, Sir Richard Owen, Sir George Grove and various others, it is on his goldsmithery that the artist would rest his reputation; on his mayoral chain for Preston, the epergne for Queen Victoria, the figurines of “Victory” (a statuette designed for the orb in the hand of the Winchester statue), “St Michael” and “St George,” as well as smaller objects such as seals, keys and the like. Mr Gilbert was chosen associate of the Royal Academy in 1887, full member in 1892 (resigned 1909), and professor of sculpture (afterwards resigned) in 1900. In 1889 he won the Grand Prix at the Paris International Exhibition. He was created a member of the Victorian Order in 1897. (See .)

GILBERT, ANN (1821–1904), American actress, was born at Rochdale, Lancashire, on the 21st of October 1821, her maiden name being Hartley. At fifteen she was a pupil at the ballet school connected with the Haymarket theatre, conducted by Paul Taglioni, and became a dancer on the stage. In 1846 she married George H. Gilbert (d. 1866), a performer in the company of which she was a member. Together they filled many engagements in English theatres, moving to America in 1849. Mrs Gilbert’s first success in a speaking part was in 1857 as Wichavenda in Brougham’s Pocahontas. In 1869 she joined Daly’s company, playing for many years wives to James Lewis’s husbands, and old women’s parts, in which she had no equal. Mrs. Gilbert held a unique position on the American stage, on account of the admiration, esteem and affection which she enjoyed both in front and behind the footlights. She died at Chicago on the 2nd of December 1904.

GILBERT, GROVE KARL (1843–), American geologist, was born at Rochester, N.Y., on the 6th of May 1843. In 1869 he was attached to the Geological Survey of Ohio and in 1879 he became a member of the United States Geological Survey, being engaged on parts of the Rocky Mountains, in Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona. He is distinguished for his researches on mountain-structure and on the Great Lakes, as well as on glacial phenomena, recent earth movements, and on topographic features generally. His report on the Geology of the Henry Mountains (1877), in which the volcanic structure known as a laccolite was first described; his History of the Niagara River (1890) and Lake Bonneville (1891—the first of the Monographs issued by the United States Geological Survey) are specially important. He was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London in 1900.

GILBERT, SIR HUMPHREY (c. 1539–1583), English soldier, navigator and pioneer colonist in America, was the second son of Otho Gilbert, of Compton, near Dartmouth, Devon, and step-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was educated at Eton and Oxford; intended for the law; introduced at court by Raleigh’s aunt, Catherine Ashley, and appointed (July 1566) captain in the army of Ireland under Sir Henry Sidney. In April 1566 he had already joined with Antony Jenkinson in a petition to Elizabeth for the discovery of the North-East Passage; in November following he presented an independent petition for the “discovering of a passage by the north to go to Cataia.” In October 1569 he became governor of Munster; on the 1st of January 1570 he was knighted; in 1571 he was returned M.P. for Plymouth; in 1572 he campaigned in the Netherlands against Spain without much success; from 1573 to 1578 he lived in retirement at Limehouse, devoting himself especially to the advocacy of a North-West Passage (his famous Discourse on this subject was published in 1576). Gilbert’s arguments, widely circulated even before 1575, were apparently of weight in promoting the Frobisher enterprises of 1576–1578. On the 11th of June 1578, Sir Humphrey obtained his long-coveted charter for North-Western discovery and colonization, authorizing him, his heirs and assigns, to discover, occupy and possess such remote “heathen lands not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people, as should seem good to him or them.” Disposing not only of his patrimony but also of the estates in Kent which he had through his wife, daughter of John Aucher of Ollerden, he fitted out an expedition which left Dartmouth on the 23rd of September 1578, and returned in May 1579, having accomplished nothing. In 1579 Gilbert aided the government in Ireland; and in 1583, after many struggles—illustrated by his appeal to Walsingham on the 11th of July 1582, for the payment of moneys due to him from government, and by his agreement with the Southampton venturers—he succeeded in equipping another fleet for “Western Planting.” On the 11th of June 1583, he sailed from Plymouth with five ships and the queen’s blessing; on the 13th of July the “Ark Raleigh,” built and manned at his brother’s expense, deserted