he officiated both at Bradley and Road, and on Monday morning he was taken suddenly ill and died 10 July 1827. By his will he left several thousands towards parochial objects. Daubeny was a man of extensive ecclesiastical erudition, an ardent lover of truth, and rigidly orthodox. Passionately attached to his own church, he had no sympathy with dissent, and attacked popery as unsparingly as he did protestant nonconformity, frequently overstepping the bounds both of courtesy and prudence. Although of quick temper and indifferent to the opinions others might entertain regarding him, he was constitutionally shy and avoided general society; among his private friends, however, were many of the prominent ecclesiastics, philanthropists, and scholars of his day. In his theories of the dignity and importance of the church and her ministers he anticipated the tractarian party. Frugal almost to penuriousness in his personal expenses, he was munificent towards objects of which he approved, nor did he begrudge time or trouble in promoting them. He was a strong advocate for education, though he wrote against the system introduced by Joseph Lancaster. His diary and letters show him to have been a man of earnest piety and humble disposition, equally disliking enthusiasm and quietism in religious matters. Daubeny was a voluminous writer, happy in illustration, and well skilled in controversial argument. His principal writings are:
- ‘Lectures on the Church Catechism,’ 1788.
- ‘A Guide to the Church, in several discourses,’ 2 vols. 1798–9.
- ‘The Fall of Papal Rome,’ &c. 1798.
- ‘Letters to Mrs. Hannah More, on her Strictures on Female Education,’ 1799.
- ‘Eight Discourses on the Connexion between the Old and New Testament,’ 1802.
- ‘Vindiciæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ,’ 1803.
- ‘The Trial of the Spirits; a Warning against Spiritual Delusion,’ 1804.
- ‘Reasons for Supporting the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in preference to the new Bible Society,’ 1812.
- ‘A Word to the Wise,’ 1812.
- ‘A few Plain Thoughts on the Liturgy,’ 1814.
- ‘Remarks on the Unitarian Mode of Explaining the Scriptures,’ 1815.
- ‘On the Doctrine of Regeneration,’ 1816.
- ‘Thirteen Discourses,’ 1816.
- ‘On Schism,’ 1819.
- ‘Seventeen Sermons of Bishop Andrewes Modernised,’ 1821.
- ‘The Protestant's Companion,’ 1824.
- ‘Supplement to the Protestant's Companion,’ 1825.
He also published his charges to the clergy in the archdeaconry of Salisbury in 1805, 1806, 1807, 1809, 1810, 1812, 1813, 1815, 1819, 1821, 1824, 1825, and 1827.
[Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Dodson's Salisbury; Smith's Antiquakeriana; Memoir prefixed to A Guide to the Church, 3rd edit. 1830; Bath, Salisbury, and other local papers, various dates.]
DAUBENY, CHARLES GILES BRIDLE, M.D. (1795–1867), chemist and botanist, younger son of the Rev. James Daubeny, rector of Stratton in Gloucestershire, was born at Stratton on 11 Feb. 1795. He was educated at Winchester School and Magdalen College, Oxford, taking the B.A. degree in 1814. Being destined for the medical profession, he attended the chemical lectures of Kidd at Oxford, and met in his class-room Buckland, the Conybeares, and Whately, who aroused in his mind a desire to study natural science. He gained a lay fellowship at Magdalen, which he held throughout life. While studying medicine at Edinburgh in 1815–18 Daubeny attended Jameson's lectures on geology, and entered into the vigorous discussions then taking place between the Huttonians and the Wernerians. In 1819, during a tour through France, he collected evidence on the geological and chemical history of the earth, and sent to Professor Jameson from Auvergne the earliest notices which had appeared in this country of that remarkable volcanic region (‘Letters on the Volcanoes of the Auvergne,’ Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1820–1). His bent towards the study of volcanic phenomena became intensified, and he made frequent journeys on the continent in search of facts. In 1826 appeared the first edition of his principal work, ‘A Description of Active and Extinct Volcanos,’ London, 1826. The careful collection of facts and the interest of the theory which he put forward to account for volcanic phenomena, namely, the admission of water to the uncombined bases of the alkalis and earths supposed to exist beneath the crust of the earth, made his work of considerable value. A second much enlarged edition was published in 1848.
In 1822 Daubeny was appointed to succeed Dr. Kidd as professor of chemistry at Oxford. He graduated M.D. at Oxford, and practised medicine till 1829. He was early elected F.R.S. In 1834 he was appointed professor of botany, and migrated to the Botanic Garden, where he resided during the remainder of his life, much occupied in experimental science, and participating in many scientific and educational movements of his time. He was appointed also professor of rural economy in 1840. He did not resign the chemistry chair till 1855. He died on 13 Dec. 1867, aged 72. He never married.
Daubeny's principal line of work was chemical, even in his geological and botanical
