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Francis Dobbs

March 10, 2023

Francis Dobbs (1750–1811) was an Irish barrister, politician and writer on political, religious and historical topics.

Early life

He was second son of Richard Dobbs (1743–1775), Rector of Clougherny and Lisburn, and his wife Mary Young of Lisnane, and nephew of Arthur Dobbs, the governor of North Carolina.[1] He was born on 27 April 1750, and took a degree at Trinity College, Dublin.[2] He was in the 63rd Regiment of Foot for around five years, leaving in 1773.[3]

Dobbs entered the Middle Temple in London in 1773; and was called to the Irish bar in 1775.[3] In Dublin he took a leading part in social life, but was noted for growing eccentricity.[4]

Volunteer

Dobbs joined The Monks of the Screw, a political drinking club. Together with other members (John Forbes, Joseph Pollock, Charles Francis Sheridan), he visited Ulster at the end of 1779 and beginning of 1780, to gather support for patriotic and nationalist plans.[5] Dobbs was a leading Volunteer and friend of James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont.[4]

In 1780 Lord George Gordon made himself unpopular in the Westminster Parliament, by reading out the pamphlet Dobbs had addressed to Lord North.[6] The English reformer John Cartwright wrote to Dobbs the same year, seeking to have advice in case an English volunteer force could be raised.[7] At this period of his life Dobbs was in correspondence also with John Jebb in England.[8]

Dobbs was the representative of a northern volunteer corps at the Dungannon Convention in 1782.[4] There he presented an ambitious plan of reform in Ireland, including a simplified liturgy.[9] On the granting of the Constitution of 1782, at the prompting of Henry Grattan, Dobbs wrote in his History "it was on the plains of America that Ireland obtained her freedom", attributing the legislative powers now given to the Irish Parliament to the outcome of the American War of Independence.[10]

Dobbs took a commission in a fencible regiment. In so doing he put himself in a minority in the Irish Volunteers, where the general opinion was that the fencibles were being recruited to undermine them.[11] For that reason he was not allowed to attend the Dungannon Convention held in September 1783.[3]

In the Irish Parliament

Dobbs was completely opposed to legislative union with England, and believed it was impious. Caulfield and others leaders decided to make use of him, and in 1797 he was returned to the Irish House of Commons for the borough of Charlemont.[4] The Irish Rebellion of 1798, in May and June of that year, left the government holding many prisoners. In the middle of July, on his own account, Samuel Neilson of the United Irishmen decided to come to terms; and Dobbs was brought in to mediate, on 22 July. He reported to Lord Castlereagh the following day. Castlereagh wanted to wait for the outcome of the trial of Oliver Bond, which was in progress. On the 27th Dobbs with sheriffs went round the prisons to try to get agreement for a settlement with the government. Despite an intervening execution, that of William Michael Byrne,[12] agreement was reached on the 29th, saving Bond's life.[13][14]

Dobbs delivered a parliamentary speech, and submitted five propositions for tranquillising the country, which were published in 1799. His major speech was delivered against the Union Bill on 7 June 1800;[4] supporting a motion to postpone the third reading of the Bill, he commented on the current state of Europe, in the light of the Book of Daniel, to the effect that the Union would never be operative.[15]

Later life

With the passing of the Act of Union 1800. Dobbs sank into obscurity; he could not get any more of his books published, and his eccentricities increased to mental illness. He died in poverty on 11 April 1811.[4]

Works

In 1773 Dobbs's tragedy, The Patriot King, or the Irish Chief was played in Dublin.[16] It was published in London in 1774, and besides the Smock Alley Theatre was put on in Rathfarnham and Belfast.[3] Its theme was the defeat of a Viking invader by Irish forces.[17]

Dobbs published political pamphlets during the Volunteer agitation:[4]

  • A Letter to Lord North, 1780;
  • Thoughts on Volunteers, 1781;
  • A History of Irish Affairs from 12 Oct 1779 to 15 Sep 1782, 1782; and
  • Thoughts on the present Mode of Taxation in Great Britain, 1784.

Dobbs then published in 1787 four large volumes of a Universal History, commencing at the Creation and ending at the death of Christ, in letters from a father to his son, in which he tried to prove historically the exact fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies. He also published in 1788 a volume of poems, most of which had appeared in periodicals.[4]

His major speech was published as Substance of a Speech delivered in the Irish House of Commons 7 June 1800, in which is predicted the second coming of the Messiah. It is said that 30,000 copies were immediately sold. He argued that the Union was forbidden by scripture, by quoting texts from Daniel and the Book of Revelation. He published in the same year his Concise View of the Great Predictions in the Sacred Writings, and his Summary of Universal History, in nine volumes.[4] In 1803 Thomas Russell asked for a stay of execution, so he could work on Revelation and Dobbs's writings.[18]

Views

Known as "Millennium Dobbs",[1] as an interpreter of Biblical prophecy he was a futurist. He placed Armageddon in Ireland.[19] David V. Erdman wrote that Dobbs's interpretation of the Bible and history was Swedenborgian.[20] It has been suggested that Dobbs might have been alluding to the prophecies of Joanna Southcott.[21] The Monthly Review wrote of the first volume of Dobbs's Universal History that he stuck rigidly to the chronology of Isaac Newton.[22] The Anti-Jacobin Review called his speech of 1800 "a species of fanaticism, which is highly discreditable to the cause of religion".[23]

Richard Popkin compared Dobbs's religious views to those of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed; and contradicted the interpretation that his reading of the Book of Genesis was pre-Adamite or in line with Serpent Seed.[24] A comment on Dobbs's View was in the Spirit of the English Magazines in 1821. It placed some names in a gathering of 30 people he mentioned there in Hoxton, with the bookseller J. Dennis and other Behmenists and followers of William Law. The group included John Bell "the Life Guardsman", a Wesleyan who had predicted the end of the world for 1757.[25] (The description may mean though the renegade Methodist George Bell.) John Dennis published the New Jerusalem Magazine, and collected alchemical and mystical books;[26] he (or his father of the same name) had a house in Hoxton Square, and was in business with James Lackington in the period 1778 to 1780.[27]

Family

Dobbs married Jane Stewart in 1773, and they had at least seven children. She was the daughter of Alexander Stewart of Ballintoy; and Dobbs moved onto Stewart property at Acton, County Armagh to manage it.[3][28] His father-in-law, nicknamed "Graceless" for his extravagance, moved to Acton after losing the Ballintoy property where he had opened up the coastal coal trade.[29]

References

  1. ^ a b Lisburn Cathedral and Its Past Rectors.
  2. ^ William Benjamin Sarsfield Taylor, History of the University of Dublin (1845), p. 446; archive.org.
  3. ^ a b c d e Lammey, David. "Dobbs, Francis". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7712. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Dobbs, Francis" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  5. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography theme, The Monks of the Screw.
  6. ^ William Cobbett, Thomas Curson Hansard, The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 vol. 20 (1814), p. 677; Google Books.
  7. ^ Padhraig Higgins, A Nation of Politicians: gender, patriotism, and political culture in late eighteenth-century Ireland (2010), p. 133; Google Books.
  8. ^ Anthony Page, John Jebb and the Enlightenment origins of British Radicalism(2003), p. 254; Google Books.
  9. ^ Tony Claydon, Ian McBride (editors), Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c.1650-c.1850 (2007), pp. 255–6; Google Books.
  10. ^ David A. Valone, Jill Marie Bradbury (editors), Anglo-Irish Identities 1571–1845 (2008), p. 18; Google Books.
  11. ^ Vincent Morley, Irish Opinion and the American Revolution, 1760–1783 (2002), p. 307; Google Books.
  12. ^ William Michael Byrne, from A Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878.
  13. ^ Richard Robert Madden, The United Irishmen, Their Lives and Times (1842), pp. 149–50;archive.org.
  14. ^ Chambers, Liam. "Bond, Oliver". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2832. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  15. ^ William Conyngham Plunket, John Baptist Cashel Hoey (editor), Speeches at the Bar and in the Senate (1865), p. 79; archive.org.
  16. ^ Samuel Carlyle Hughes, The Pre-Victorian Drama in Dublin (1904), p. 63;archive.org .
  17. ^ ricorso.net, Francis Dobbs.
  18. ^ Myrtle Hill, The Time of the End: millenarian beliefs in Ulster (2001), p. 28; Google Books.
  19. ^ David Brady, The Contribution of British Writers between 1560 and 1830 to the Interpretation of Revelation 13.16–18: (the number of the beast): a study in the history of exegesis (1983), note 84 on pp. 205–6; Google Books.
  20. ^ David V. Erdman, Blake: Prophet against Empire (1977), p. 430 note 15.
  21. ^ Eugen Weber, Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages (2000), p. 114; Google Books.
  22. ^ The Monthly Review, vol. 79 (1788), p. 263; Google Books.
  23. ^ The Antijacobin Review: and protestant advocate: or, monthly political and literary censor, vol. 9 (1801), p. 32; Google Books.
  24. ^ Richard Henry Popkin, Isaac La Peyrère (1596–1676): his life, work, and influence(1987), p. 131; Google Books.
  25. ^ Spirit of the English Magazines, vol. 9 (1821), p. 478; Google Books.
  26. ^ Edward Palmer Thompson, Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the moral law (1994), p. 43 note 18;Google Books.
  27. ^ James Lackington, Memoirs of the Forty-Five First Years of the Life of James Lackington, Bookseller: in forty-seven letters to a friend (1830), pp. 210–2; Google Books.
  28. ^ thepeerage.com, Francis Dobbs.
  29. ^ Ulster Journal of Archaeology January 1901, vol. 7, pp. 11–2; archive.org.

External links

Attribution

  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Dobbs, Francis". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

March 10, 2023
francis, dobbs, 1750, 1811, irish, barrister, politician, writer, political, religious, historical, topics, contents, early, life, volunteer, irish, parliament, later, life, works, views, family, references, external, linksearly, life, edithe, second, richard,. Francis Dobbs 1750 1811 was an Irish barrister politician and writer on political religious and historical topics Contents 1 Early life 2 Volunteer 3 In the Irish Parliament 4 Later life 5 Works 6 Views 7 Family 8 References 9 External linksEarly life EditHe was second son of Richard Dobbs 1743 1775 Rector of Clougherny and Lisburn and his wife Mary Young of Lisnane and nephew of Arthur Dobbs the governor of North Carolina 1 He was born on 27 April 1750 and took a degree at Trinity College Dublin 2 He was in the 63rd Regiment of Foot for around five years leaving in 1773 3 Dobbs entered the Middle Temple in London in 1773 and was called to the Irish bar in 1775 3 In Dublin he took a leading part in social life but was noted for growing eccentricity 4 Volunteer EditDobbs joined The Monks of the Screw a political drinking club Together with other members John Forbes Joseph Pollock Charles Francis Sheridan he visited Ulster at the end of 1779 and beginning of 1780 to gather support for patriotic and nationalist plans 5 Dobbs was a leading Volunteer and friend of James Caulfeild 1st Earl of Charlemont 4 In 1780 Lord George Gordon made himself unpopular in the Westminster Parliament by reading out the pamphlet Dobbs had addressed to Lord North 6 The English reformer John Cartwright wrote to Dobbs the same year seeking to have advice in case an English volunteer force could be raised 7 At this period of his life Dobbs was in correspondence also with John Jebb in England 8 Dobbs was the representative of a northern volunteer corps at the Dungannon Convention in 1782 4 There he presented an ambitious plan of reform in Ireland including a simplified liturgy 9 On the granting of the Constitution of 1782 at the prompting of Henry Grattan Dobbs wrote in his History it was on the plains of America that Ireland obtained her freedom attributing the legislative powers now given to the Irish Parliament to the outcome of the American War of Independence 10 Dobbs took a commission in a fencible regiment In so doing he put himself in a minority in the Irish Volunteers where the general opinion was that the fencibles were being recruited to undermine them 11 For that reason he was not allowed to attend the Dungannon Convention held in September 1783 3 In the Irish Parliament EditDobbs was completely opposed to legislative union with England and believed it was impious Caulfield and others leaders decided to make use of him and in 1797 he was returned to the Irish House of Commons for the borough of Charlemont 4 The Irish Rebellion of 1798 in May and June of that year left the government holding many prisoners In the middle of July on his own account Samuel Neilson of the United Irishmen decided to come to terms and Dobbs was brought in to mediate on 22 July He reported to Lord Castlereagh the following day Castlereagh wanted to wait for the outcome of the trial of Oliver Bond which was in progress On the 27th Dobbs with sheriffs went round the prisons to try to get agreement for a settlement with the government Despite an intervening execution that of William Michael Byrne 12 agreement was reached on the 29th saving Bond s life 13 14 Dobbs delivered a parliamentary speech and submitted five propositions for tranquillising the country which were published in 1799 His major speech was delivered against the Union Bill on 7 June 1800 4 supporting a motion to postpone the third reading of the Bill he commented on the current state of Europe in the light of the Book of Daniel to the effect that the Union would never be operative 15 Later life EditWith the passing of the Act of Union 1800 Dobbs sank into obscurity he could not get any more of his books published and his eccentricities increased to mental illness He died in poverty on 11 April 1811 4 Works EditIn 1773 Dobbs s tragedy The Patriot King or the Irish Chief was played in Dublin 16 It was published in London in 1774 and besides the Smock Alley Theatre was put on in Rathfarnham and Belfast 3 Its theme was the defeat of a Viking invader by Irish forces 17 Dobbs published political pamphlets during the Volunteer agitation 4 A Letter to Lord North 1780 Thoughts on Volunteers 1781 A History of Irish Affairs from 12 Oct 1779 to 15 Sep 1782 1782 and Thoughts on the present Mode of Taxation in Great Britain 1784 Dobbs then published in 1787 four large volumes of a Universal History commencing at the Creation and ending at the death of Christ in letters from a father to his son in which he tried to prove historically the exact fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies He also published in 1788 a volume of poems most of which had appeared in periodicals 4 His major speech was published as Substance of a Speech delivered in the Irish House of Commons 7 June 1800 in which is predicted the second coming of the Messiah It is said that 30 000 copies were immediately sold He argued that the Union was forbidden by scripture by quoting texts from Daniel and the Book of Revelation He published in the same year his Concise View of the Great Predictions in the Sacred Writings and his Summary of Universal History in nine volumes 4 In 1803 Thomas Russell asked for a stay of execution so he could work on Revelation and Dobbs s writings 18 Views EditKnown as Millennium Dobbs 1 as an interpreter of Biblical prophecy he was a futurist He placed Armageddon in Ireland 19 David V Erdman wrote that Dobbs s interpretation of the Bible and history was Swedenborgian 20 It has been suggested that Dobbs might have been alluding to the prophecies of Joanna Southcott 21 The Monthly Review wrote of the first volume of Dobbs s Universal History that he stuck rigidly to the chronology of Isaac Newton 22 The Anti Jacobin Review called his speech of 1800 a species of fanaticism which is highly discreditable to the cause of religion 23 Richard Popkin compared Dobbs s religious views to those of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed and contradicted the interpretation that his reading of the Book of Genesis was pre Adamite or in line with Serpent Seed 24 A comment on Dobbs s View was in the Spirit of the English Magazines in 1821 It placed some names in a gathering of 30 people he mentioned there in Hoxton with the bookseller J Dennis and other Behmenists and followers of William Law The group included John Bell the Life Guardsman a Wesleyan who had predicted the end of the world for 1757 25 The description may mean though the renegade Methodist George Bell John Dennis published the New Jerusalem Magazine and collected alchemical and mystical books 26 he or his father of the same name had a house in Hoxton Square and was in business with James Lackington in the period 1778 to 1780 27 Family EditDobbs married Jane Stewart in 1773 and they had at least seven children She was the daughter of Alexander Stewart of Ballintoy and Dobbs moved onto Stewart property at Acton County Armagh to manage it 3 28 His father in law nicknamed Graceless for his extravagance moved to Acton after losing the Ballintoy property where he had opened up the coastal coal trade 29 References Edit a b Lisburn Cathedral and Its Past Rectors William Benjamin Sarsfield Taylor History of the University of Dublin 1845 p 446 archive org a b c d e Lammey David Dobbs Francis Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 7712 Subscription or UK public library membership required a b c d e f g h i Dobbs Francis Dictionary of National Biography London Smith Elder amp Co 1885 1900 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography theme The Monks of the Screw William Cobbett Thomas Curson Hansard The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 vol 20 1814 p 677 Google Books Padhraig Higgins A Nation of Politicians gender patriotism and political culture in late eighteenth century Ireland 2010 p 133 Google Books Anthony Page John Jebb and the Enlightenment origins of British Radicalism 2003 p 254 Google Books Tony Claydon Ian McBride editors Protestantism and National Identity Britain and Ireland c 1650 c 1850 2007 pp 255 6 Google Books David A Valone Jill Marie Bradbury editors Anglo Irish Identities 1571 1845 2008 p 18 Google Books Vincent Morley Irish Opinion and the American Revolution 1760 1783 2002 p 307 Google Books William Michael Byrne from A Compendium of Irish Biography 1878 Richard Robert Madden The United Irishmen Their Lives and Times 1842 pp 149 50 archive org Chambers Liam Bond Oliver Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 2832 Subscription or UK public library membership required William Conyngham Plunket John Baptist Cashel Hoey editor Speeches at the Bar and in the Senate 1865 p 79 archive org Samuel Carlyle Hughes The Pre Victorian Drama in Dublin 1904 p 63 archive org ricorso net Francis Dobbs Myrtle Hill The Time of the End millenarian beliefs in Ulster 2001 p 28 Google Books David Brady The Contribution of British Writers between 1560 and 1830 to the Interpretation of Revelation 13 16 18 the number of the beast a study in the history of exegesis 1983 note 84 on pp 205 6 Google Books David V Erdman Blake Prophet against Empire 1977 p 430 note 15 Eugen Weber Apocalypses Prophecies Cults and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages 2000 p 114 Google Books The Monthly Review vol 79 1788 p 263 Google Books The Antijacobin Review and protestant advocate or monthly political and literary censor vol 9 1801 p 32 Google Books Richard Henry Popkin Isaac La Peyrere 1596 1676 his life work and influence 1987 p 131 Google Books Spirit of the English Magazines vol 9 1821 p 478 Google Books Edward Palmer Thompson Witness Against the Beast William Blake and the moral law 1994 p 43 note 18 Google Books James Lackington Memoirs of the Forty Five First Years of the Life of James Lackington Bookseller in forty seven letters to a friend 1830 pp 210 2 Google Books thepeerage com Francis Dobbs Ulster Journal of Archaeology January 1901 vol 7 pp 11 2 archive org External links EditWorldCat page Extended quote from the speech of 1800 from Notes and Queries 1854 Attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Dobbs Francis Dictionary of National Biography London Smith Elder amp Co 1885 1900 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Francis Dobbs amp oldid 1112873063, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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