Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cheape, Douglas
CHEAPE, DOUGLAS (1797–1861), advocate and author, younger son of John Cheape of Rossie, Fifeshire, was born in 1797. Sir John Cheape [q. v.] was his elder brother. He studied law, and was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh. In 1827 he was appointed professor of civil law in the university. This appointment he resigned in 1842, owing to 'domestic circumstances,' when the faculty recorded 'their high sense of the very able and efficient manner in which he had discharged the duties of the chair.' He introduced some useful reforms, the chief of which was the substitution of English for Latin in the class examinations; but his only publication on the subject was his 'Introductory Lecture on the Civil Law,' delivered in the university of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1827). He was engaged for the pursuer in a famous case, Southgate and Mandatory v, Montgomery, on which he wrote a once well-known squib called 'Res Judicata.' This with some other contributions of a like nature was published in the 'Court of Session Garland' (with Appendix, Edinburgh, 1839).
Other squibs of his were 'The Book of the Chronicles of the City; being a Scriptural account of the Election of a member for the City of Edinburgh in May 1834' (manuscript prefatory note to Museum copy), and (probably) 'La festa d'Overgroghi ' (viz. Over Gogar, near Edinburgh), a burlesque opera in Italian and English. Cheape died at Trinity Grove, Trinity, near Edinburgh, 1 Sept. 1861.
He married in 1837 Ann, daughter of General Rose of Holme, Nairnshire.
[Grant's Story of the University of Edinburgh, 1884; Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Scotsman, 3 Sept. 1861; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iv. 236; Blackwood's Mag. January 1871, pp. 111-112; Brit. Mus. Cat.; information from J. R. Stewart, esq., of Edinburgh.]