Works of … John Hurrion,' edited with memoir by the Rev. A. Taylor, London, 1823, 12mo, 3 vols.
[Memoirs by Taylor and Walter Wilson; Wilson's Dissenting Churches, iii. 288; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.]
HURST, HENRY (1629–1690), nonconformist divine, born at Mickleton, Gloucestershire, 31 March 1629, was son of Henry Hurst, vicar of Mickleton. He entered Merchant Taylors' School in October 1644, and proceeded to Oxford as a batler of Magdalen Hall about 1645. He submitted to the parliamentary visitors in 1648, and was made by them probationary fellow of Merton College in 1649. He graduated B.A. in 1649 and M.A. in 1652. Soon after the latter date he commenced to preach, and became known as a sharp disputant in the presbyterian interest, his ministry being exercised in London, Kent, and Gloucester. About 1660 he was elected by the parishioners of St. Matthew's, Friday Street, London, to the rectory of that parish, from which, in 1662, he was ejected, subsequently preached in conventicles, and was consequently more than once in trouble. He is stated to have anticipated restoration to his living as well as to a lectureship he had held at Highgate. After the indulgence of 1671 he preached openly in London and other places, and in 1675 he was made chaplain to the Earl of Anglesea. In 1678 he was, according to Wood, 'very active in aggravating the concerns' of 'the Popish plot,' and in 1683 is believed to have been implicated in the Rye House plot. After James II's indulgence he preached in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. He died of apoplexy on 14 April 1690, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul, Covent Garden. His funeral sermon was preached by Richard Adams, M.A. His works show him to have been an earnest, clever, and pious man. The chief are:
- 'Three Sermons on Rom. vii. 7,' Oxford, 1659, 8vo.
- 'Three Sermons on the Inability of the highest, improved natural Man to attain a sufficient Knowledge of Indwelling Sin, 1660, 12mo.
- 'The Revival of Grace,' &c., London, 1678, 8vo (dedicated to his patron, Arthur, earl of Anglesea).
- 'Annotations upon Ezekielandthe Twelve Lesser Prophets' (in continuation of Matthew Poole's 'Annotations on the Holy Bible'), 1688.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 120, 171; Brodrick's Memorials of Merton Coll. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.),pp. 291, 361; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, i. 163-4; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Robinson's Reg. Merchant Taylors' School, i. 164.]
HURWITZ, HYMAN (1770–1844), professor of Hebrew in the university of London, born at Posen in Poland in 1770, was a learned Jew who came to England about 1800 and conducted a private academy for Jews at Highgate, where he established a close friendship with Coleridge and corresponded with him. In 1828 he was elected professor of the Hebrew language and literature at University College, London. His inaugural lecture was published. He died on 18 July 1844. He was author of:
- 'Vindiciae Hebraicae, being a Defence of the Hebrew Scriptures as a Vehicle of Revealed Religion, in Refutation of J. Bellamy,' 1820.
- 'Hebrew Tales from the Writings of the Hebrew Sages' 1826.
- 'Elements of the Hebrew Language,' 1829; 4th edition, 1848.
- 'The Etymology and Syntax of the Hebrew Language,' 1831; a first part on orthography appeared in 1807.
- 'A Grammar of the Hebrew Language,' 2 parts; 2nd edition, enlarged, 1835.
Hurwitz also wrote many Hebrew hymns, odes, elegies, and dirges. A Hebrew dirge, 'chaunted in the Great Synagogue, Aldgate, on the day of the Funeral of Princess Charlotte' was published in 1817, with an English translation in verse by Coleridge. 'The Knell,' another Hebrew elegy by Hurwitz on George III, appeared in an English translation by W. Smith at Thurso in 1827.
[Private information; Voice of Jacob, iii. 196 (22 Aug. 1844); Brit. Mus. Cat.]
HUSBAND, WILLIAM (1823–1887), civil engineer and inventor, born at Mylor, Cornwall, on 13 Oct. 1822, was eldest son of James Husband, surveyor for Lloyd's Register at Falmouth, who died in 1857. He was educated first by Edgcombe Rimell, curate of Mabe, and afterwards at Bellevue Academy, Penryn. Declining to be either a sailor or a ship-builder, as his father desired, he ran away at the age of sixteen to Hayle, where at his earnest solicitation he was in 1839 received as an apprentice for four years by Harvey & Company, engineers and iron-founders. His steadiness and ability soon won for him the esteem of his employers, and in 1843, when they had built the Leigh water engine for the drainage of Haarlem Lake, he was sent to Holland to superintend its erection. As the machinery could not be landed for some time on account of the ice, he went to the village school at Sassenheym to learn Dutch. In six months he wrote and spoke it with fluency. On the death of the mechanical engineer in charge of the steam machinery on the drainage works in 1845, he succeeded to that post, when he planned and erected the half-weg engine. The lake when
