Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/23

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Massie
9
Massingberd

  1. field,' 1756.
  2. 'Facts which shew the Necessity of Establishing a Regular Method for the Punctual, Frequent, and Certain Payment of Seamen employed in the Royal Navy,' 4to, London, 1758.
  3. 'Reasons humbly offered against laying any farther British Duties on Wrought Silks,' 4to, London, 1758.
  4. 'A Plan for the Establishment of Charity Houses for Exposed or Deserted Women and Girls; Observations concerning the Foundling Hospital; Considerations relating to the Poor and Poor's Laws,' 4to, London, 1758. Of this important work, which inveighs against the old law of settlement and advocates a national rather than a parochial settlement for the poor, a full account is given in Dr. Cunningham's ' Growth of England,' ii. 384-7.
  5. 'Farther Observations concerning the Foundling Hospital,' 4to, London, 1759.
  6. 'A State of the British Sugar Colony Trade/ 4to, London, 1759.
  7. 'A Representation concerning the Knowledge of Commerce as a National Concern, pointing out the proper Means of Promoting such Knowledge in this Kingdom,' 4to, London, 1760. England, he maintained, had nothing to apprehend, but everything to gain, from the publication of facts and statistics relative to commerce. He therefore proposed to divide his historical account of every branch of manufacture into sixteen heads, under one or other of which fragments of information might be classified, in the hope that the whole account would sooner or later be made sufficiently complete. In the same work he attributes the retention of British industries to four causes: (1) Possession of better materials: (2) Natural advantages in regard to labour and navigation; (3) Superior skill and spirit, the latter due to the secure enjoyment of liberty and property; (4) Protection from foreign manufactures.
  8. 'Observations relating to the Coin of Great Britain,' 4to, London, 1760.
  9. 'Brief Observations concerning the Management of the War,' '2nd edit. 8vo, London, 1761.
  10. 'An Historical Account of the Naval Power of France,' 4to, London, 1762.
  11. 'Observations relating to British and Spanish Proceedings,' 4to, London, 1702.
  12. 'Observations on the new Cyder Tax, so far as the same may affect our Woollen Manufacturies,' &c., fol. London, 1764; another edition, in 4to, the same year. He opposed the tax strongly on the ground that it would denude Devonshire of its population and strengthen the tendency for the woollen manufacture to migrate from the cider counties into Yorkshire. His 'Memorandum to the Land-holders of England, 1768,' is in Additional MS. 33056, f. 285, in the British, Museum.

In the Breadalbane sale at Edinburgh in 1866 was an almost complete set of Massie's tracts, bound up together as a thick quarto volume; a similar set (if it be not this identical one) is at present in Dr. Cunningham's possession.

[Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times, ii. 426, and elsewhere; McCulloch's Lit. Pol. Econ. pp. 251, 3801; Coquelin and Guillaumin's Dict. de l'Économie Politique, ii. 144; Roscher's Pol. Econ. i. 150; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 241, ix. 119.

MASSINGBERD, FRANCIS CHARLES (1800–1872), chancellor of Lincoln, the son of Francis Massingberd, rector of Washingborough, near Lincpln, and Elizabeth, his wife, youngest daughter of William Burrell Massingberd of OrmsbyHall, was born at his father's rectory, 3 Dec. 1800, and baptised 30 Dec. After preparatory education at a school at Eltham, Kent, he entered Rugby School under Dr. Wooll in 1814. He matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was elected a demy, 23 July 1818. He gained a second class in literæ humaniores, and graduated B.A. 5 Dec. 1822, M.A. 26 June 1825. He was ordained deacon by Edward Legge, bishop of Oxford, 13 June 1824, and priest by Bishop Tomline [q. v.] of Lincoln, 5 Sept. 1825, and was instituted to the family living of South Ormsby, Lincolnshire, on 9 Dec. of that year. He had during the previous summer, together with his friend William Ralph Churton [q. v.], accompanied Dr. Arnold, head-master of Rugby, in a visit to Italy, undertaken by Arnold to determine the line of Hannibal's passage over the Alps, and to explore the battlefields of his campaign, for the purposes of his 'Roman History.' When settled at Ormsby he devoted himself assiduously to the care of his parish, containing a scattered rural population, whom he watched over with fatherly solicitude. He rebuilt Driby church, and thoroughly restored that at Ormsby, erected a new rectory on a better site, and built schools, which he had originally started in a kitchen. In 1840, at the request of his lifelong friend, Edward Churton [q. v.], who revised the proofs during his absence from England, he undertook the 'English History of the leaders of the Reformation,' as one of the series known as the ' Englishman's Library,' of which Churton was the editor. It was published in 1842, and reached a fourth edition in 1866. Written from a distinctly high-church point of view, it affords a clear, temperate, and on the whole trustworthy narrative of the events of the period, and is free from sectarian bitterness. The style is