KILBURN, WILLIAM (1745–1818), artist and calico-printer, born in Capel Street, Dublin, in 1745, was only son of Samuel Kilburn, architect, of Dublin, and Sarah Johnston his wife. He showed an early taste for drawing, and was apprenticed to John Lisson, an English calico-printer at Leixlip, near Dublin, but devoted much of his spare time to drawing and engraving. The family was in embarrassed circumstances at the father's death, and Kilburn came to London, where he obtained a good sale for his calico designs. He also became acquainted with William Curtis [q. v.] the botanist, and executed the exquisite plates of flowers, drawn and engraved from nature, for Curtis's ‘Flora Londinensis.’ He was able to return to Ireland and fetch his mother and sister, settling with them in Page's Walk, Bermondsey. Soon afterwards he accepted the management of Newton's calico-printing factory at Wallington, Surrey; after seven years he purchased the business. The beauty of his designs established him as one of the most eminent calico-printers in Europe, and he acquired great wealth. He induced Edmund Burke to introduce a bill into parliament to secure to calico-printers the copyright of original designs. He died at Wallington on 23 Dec. 1818, aged 73. Kilburn married the eldest daughter of Thomas Brown, an East India director, by whom he left a large family.
[Gent. Mag. 1818, cii. 222; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography.]
KILBURNE, RICHARD (1605–1678), Kentish topographer, born in 1605, was the fifth and youngest son of Isack Kilburne of London, by Mary, daughter of Thomas Clarke of Saffron Walden, Essex (Visitation of London, 1633–5, Harl. Soc. ii. 31; Kilbourne, Family of Kilbourn, pedigrees facing p. 8). He was baptised, 6 Oct. 1605, at St. Mary Woolchurch Haw (Registers, ed. Brooke and Hallen, p. 314). He entered Staple Inn, became an eminent solicitor in chancery, and was five times principal of his inn. By 1631 he had entered into possession of Fowlers, an estate in the parish of Hawkhurst, Kent, which he greatly improved. As a J.P. for the county he was deputed for three or four years during the commonwealth to celebrate weddings at Hawkhurst without sacred rites, but married only two couples (Archæologia Cantiana, ix. 263). In 1650 he appears as steward of the manors of Brede and Bodiam, Sussex. In 1657 he published as an epitome of a larger work ‘A Brief Survey of the County of Kent, viz. the names of the parishes in the same; in what bailiwick … and division … every of the said Parishes is …; the day on which any Market or Faire is kept therein; the ancient names of the Parish Churches, &c.’ (oblong quarto); it is exceedingly rare. Two years later Kilburne issued his promised ‘larger survey’ entitled ‘A Topographie, or Survey of the County of Kent, with … historicall, and other matters touching the same, &c.,’ 4 to, London, 1659, to which his portrait by T. Cross is affixed. Although mostly a meagre gazetteer, the book contains much curious information about Kilburne's own parish of Hawkhurst (cf. ib. v. 59). Kilburne was also author of ‘Choice Presidents upon all Acts of Parliament relating to the office and duty of a Justice of Peace … as also a more usefull method of making up Court-Rolls than hath been hitherto known or published in print,’ of which a third edition, ‘very much enlarged,’ was ‘made publick by G. F. of Gray's Inn, Esq.,’ in 1685, 12mo, London. An eighth edition appeared in 1715.
Kilburne died on 15 Nov. 1678, aged 73, and was buried in the north chancel of Hawkhurst Church, where there is a flat stone to his memory (Hasted, Kent, fol. ed. iii. 71). He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of William Davy of Beckley, Sussex, by whom he had six sons and three daughters, and secondly, in 1656, Sarah, daughter of James Short, and apparently widow of one Birchett, who brought him no issue (cf. Kilburne's will registered in P. C. C. 6, King). A portrait of Kilburne was engraved by Cook (Evans, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 195). A few of Kilburne's letters, preserved among the Frewen MSS. at Brickwall, Northiam, Sussex, have been printed in ‘Sussex Archæological Collections’ (xvi. 302–4).
[J. R. Smith's Bibl. Cantiana, p. 4; Sussex Arch. Coll. ii. 167, ix. 295; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 2nd edit. iii. 118; Marvin's Legal Bibliography.]
KILBYE, RICHARD (1561?–1620), biblical scholar, born of humble parentage at Ratcliffe on the Wreak, Leicestershire, about 1561, matriculated at Oxford from Lincoln College on 20 Dec. 1577, and was elected fellow on 18 Jan. 1577-8 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 75, pt. iii. p. 77), He was admitted B.A. on 9 Dec. 1578, M.A. in 1582, B.D. and D.D. in 1596 (ib. vol. ii. pt. i. pp.139, 198, 263). On 10 Dec. 1590 he was elected rector of Lincoln College (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii, 567), and became prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral on 28 Sept. 1601 (ib. ii. 188). In 1610 he was appointed regius professor of Hebrew (ib. iii. 514). He died on 7 Nov. 1620, and
