Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/185

 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. JOHN BIRD. Hutchinson, the first general historian of the county of Durham, sayB : — " We cannot resort too often to the characters of great and eminent men ; they are the best lessons we can lay hold of, as well for our own government, as our knowledge of manners and the world. Their virtues prompt emulation, their successes are incitements to laudable ambition, and their errors bring forth most salutary examples." Bishop Auckland never seems to have been very fertile in the production of examples of this kind; at least, few of her sons have been handed down to posterity as possessing a title to a place in British biography, or a niche in the temple of fame. Amongst those, however, who have formed an exception, and who have obtained honourable mention, is John Bird, who was bom in Bishop Auckland in the early part of the last century, and who became one of the most celebrated mathematical instrument makers of that period. He also practised in London for a short time as an engraver, and, in the year 1740, is said to have invented an instrument for finding the latitude at sea, which surpassed all others previously used. He was also connected with Woolwich Academy, and is said to have been the individual who recommended his friend Jeremiah Dixon, of Cockfield, as a fit and proper person to be sent out to St. Helena, for the purpose of making observations of the transit of the planet Venus across the sun's disc. Of his birth and parentage, or of his subsequent history, little seems known; only, that he formed one of a group of clever men (all of kindred genius) which South Durham produced about that time — ^viz., the eccentric mathematician, William Emmerson, of Hurworth; George and Jeremiah Dixon, of Cockfield ; and Thomas Wright, of Byers Green. In the third voL of the Eegisters of St. Andrew's we find the following entry of his baptism : — 1709. — December 27tli. — John, son of John Burd, baptized. MAJOE-GENERAL HODGSON.* John -Anthony Hodgson, eldest son of George Hodgson, Esq., was bom at Bishop Auckland, July 2nd, 1777. He received the principal part of his school education at Durham Grammar School, under Dr. Britton, and was for some time designed to follow the profession of the law. This employment, however, was found to be by no means adapted to the natural bent of his mind ; and at the expiration of his engagement, he availed himself with eagerness of an opportunity of entering the military service of the Honourable East India Company. In 1799, at the age of 22, he embarked as a cadet for India, and in May, 1800, became lieutenant in the 10th regiment of Native Infantry. Until this time, his attention had not been directed to the Oriental languages or to general science. But he now devoted himself with assiduity to those studies, and especially to practical astronomy. The earliest of his observations (an immersion of Jupiter's first satellite, October 23, 1812, observed at Setapoor cantonments, Oude) is printed in "Mem. Hist. Soc," voL iii, p. 304. In the year 1817, being then captain in the 10th regiment B.N.I., he was selected, with Lieut Herbert, to conduct a survey of the rivers Ganges and Jumna, and to determine the heights and positions of the Himalaya mountains. In conducting this survey, great diflBiculties were encoun- anther aaaisted to oompUe. Digitized by Google
 * The accompanying Biographical Sketch is extracted from Fordyce'a "History of the County of Dnrham" — a work which th0