Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Daubuz, Charles
DAUBUZ, CHARLES (1673–1717), divine, was born in the province of Guienne in France, in July 1673, being son of Isaïe d'Aubus, protestant pastor at Nérac. On the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the father obtained from Louis XIV a document, still preserved in the family archives, authorising him to leave France with his wife, Julie, and four children. He started for England, but on reaching Calais he died at an inn, and was privately buried in the garden, the innkeeper helping his widow, during the night, to dig the grave. She was afterwards joined at Calais by her husband's brother, who held some ecclesiastical preferment in the north of England, and he succeeded in bringing the widow and her children over to this country, and settling them in Yorkshire. Charles Daubuz was admitted into Merchant Taylors' School, London, on 11 Sept. 1686 (ROBINSON, Register of Merchant Taylors' School, i. 317). He was admitted a sizar of Queens' College, Cambridge, 10 Jan. 1689. He graduated B.A. 13 Jan. 1693, was appointed librarian of his college on 21 March in the same year, and continued in that employment till 10 Aug. 1695. In the following year he succeeded Thomas Balguy in the mastership of the grammar school of Sheffield, and he was the early tutor of his predecessor's son, John Balguy [q. v.] He commenced M.A. at Cambridge in 1697 (Cantabrigienses Graduati, ed. 1787, p. 110). He left Sheffield in 1699, on being presented by the dean and chapter of York to the vicarage of Brotherton, a small village near Ferrybridge in the West Riding of Yorkshire. This vicarage, of the annual value of 60l. or 70l., was all the preferment he ever enjoyed, and in order to support a numerous family he was obliged to undertake the education of the sons of several gentlemen in the neighbourhood. He devoted his leisure to the composition of his bulky commentary on the ‘Apocalypse,’ which was eventually published by his widow. It is stated in a manuscript note by the Rev. John Law, who afterwards became vicar of Brotherton, that ‘when he had finished his book he went to consult Dr. Bentley (the then great critic of the age); but the doctor (as is supposed), thinking Mr. Daubuz would outshine him in learning, and eclipse his glory, did not encourage him to publish it. Upon which poor Mr. Daubuz returned home unhappy in mind and weary in body, sickened of pleuritic fever, and died in a few days,’ on 14 June 1717. Law says he was ‘a tall, stout, strong, hale man, of a swarthy, black complexion, wore his own strong, black curled hair, and had a very loud voice. He was a worthy, good man—a man beloved and respected by all.’
He married Anne Philota, daughter of Philippe Guide, M.D., and left issue eight children. The present English families of the name of Daubuz derive their descent from his fifth son Theophilus, who was born at Brotherton in 1713, and died in London in 1774 (Agnew, Protestant Exiles from France, 2nd edit. ii. 246). Another of his sons, Claude, was educated at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, became vicar of Huddersfield, and died at Pontefract on 15 Sept. 1760, aged 50.
His works are: 1. ‘Caroli Daubuz Presbyteri et A.M., pro testimonio Flavii Josephi de Jesu Christo, libri duo … Cum præfatione Johannis Ernesti Grabe,’ London, 1706, 8vo. Dedicated to his patron, Dr. Henry James, master of Queens' College. This dissertation is reprinted in Havercamp's edition of ‘Josephus,’ 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1726. 2. ‘A Perpetual Commentary on the Revelation of St. John … with a preliminary Discourse concerning the certainty of the Principles upon which the Revelation of St. John is to be understood,’ London, 1720, fol. pp. 1068. Another edition ‘new modell'd, abridg'd, and render'd plain to the meanest capacity, by Peter Lancaster, A.M., vicar of Bowden in Cheshire, and sometime student of Christ Church in Oxford,’ appeared at London in 1730, 4to. Lancaster collected the symbolical matter, in which Daubuz's commentary is very rich, and formed it into a dictionary, constituting the first part of his abridgment. A new and enlarged edition, prepared by Matthew Habershon, of this introductory part was published under the title of ‘A Symbolical Dictionary; in which … the general signification of the Prophetic Symbols, especially those of the Apocalypse, is laid down and proved from the most ancient authorities, sacred and profane,’ London, 1842, 8vo. Horne describes the ‘Commentary’ as ‘an elaborate and useful work, of which later authors have not failed to avail themselves’ (Introd. to Study of the Scriptures, vol. v.)
[Addit. MSS. 5867, f. 33, 22910, ff. 277, 389, 22911, f. 72; Agnew's Protestant Exiles from France, 2nd edit. ii. 219, iii. 73, 214; New and General Biog. Dict. (1761), vol. iv., Whiston's MS. note on fly-leaf; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Darling's Cycl. Bibliographica, i. 871; Gent. Mag. new ser. xiii. 212; Haag's La France Protestante (Bordier), i. 559; Hunter's Hallamshire (Gatty), 309; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), ii. 594; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. iv. 316, v. 63, 64; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 435, ii. 145, 390, 724, iii. 668, viii. 373; Notes and Queries, 1st series, vi. 527, vii. 52, 144; Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, ed. Whitaker, 232; Whiston's Memoirs (1749), 107; Zouch's Address to the Clergy of the Deaneries of Richmond, Catterick, and Boroughbridge at the visitations held 1792, p. 4.]