Horsley wrote, while in Germany, several instrumental works, including a trio for piano, violin, and violoncello, and an overture which was produced at Cassel in 1845.
On his return to England he devoted himself to teaching music, and won considerable distinction as a performer on the piano and the organ. Shortly after he settled in London, at the age of twenty-four, he achieved a success with an oratorio, ‘David;’ and again, three years later, with a second oratorio, ‘Joseph.’ Both works were written for the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. From 19 Sept. 1853 till June 1857 he was organist of St. John's, Notting Hill. In 1854 he composed an anthem for the consecration of Fairfield Church, and in 1860 produced at the Glasgow musical festival a third oratorio, ‘Gideon.’
In 1868 he went to Australia, and lived for some time in Melbourne. For the opening of the Town Hall in that city, in 1870, he wrote an ode, ‘Euterpe,’ for solos, chorus, and orchestra. A selection from this was performed at the Crystal Palace in March 1876. From Melbourne he proceeded to the United States, and died in New York, 28 Feb. 1876.
Besides the compositions already mentioned, Horsley's writings include: music to ‘Comus,’ which was much praised on its production; a song, ‘The Patriot Flag,’ and an anthem written while he was in America; and a number of songs, anthems, pianoforte pieces, and sonatas for piano, piano and flute, and piano and violoncello. He edited a ‘Collection of Glees,’ by his father, in 1873, and his own ‘Text-Book of Harmony’ was published posthumously in London in 1876.
[Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 754; Harper's Weekly Journal, 18 March 1876; information from Mr. J. C. Horsley, R.A.; Vestry Minutes of St. John's, Notting Hill; Cat. of music in Brit. Mus.]
HORSLEY, JOHN (1685–1732), archæologist, of a Northumberland family, is said by Turner to have been born at Pinkie House in the parish of Inveresk, Midlothian, in 1685. Hinde thinks he was a son of Charles Horsley, a member of the Tailors' Company of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and that he was probably born there. He was educated at the Newcastle grammar school, but went at a very early age to the Edinburgh University, where he matriculated on 2 March 1698, and graduated M.A. on 29 April 1701. Soon after this he became minister of the presbyterian congregation of Morpeth, Northumberland, vacated by the removal of Jonathan Harle or Harley (afterwards M.D.) to Alnwick, Northumberland. Calamy visited him on his way to Scotland in April 1709. According to Evans's ‘List’ (1715–29) he was minister at Morpeth and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea jointly, and had two hundred hearers, including ten county voters. He is probably identical with the John Horsley who in 1721 is described as ‘gent.’ of Widdrington, near Morpeth, and who acted as agent to a York building company, then holding the Widdrington estates. He made calculations of the rainfall at Widdrington in 1722 and 1723. He kept a school at Morpeth; Newton Ogle, afterwards dean of Winchester, was one of his pupils. At a later period he employed himself there, and at Newcastle, as a lecturer on natural science. His letters show that he was at Bath in 1727 and in London in 1728. On 23 April 1730 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In a letter (undated, probably May 1731) to Robert Cay of Newcastle he encloses advertisements for the ‘Newcastle Courant’ of ‘a complete course of experimental philosophy’ at Morpeth and of his great work on Roman Britain, which was then approaching completion. His correspondence with Roger Gale [q. v.], who contributed an article to ‘Roman Britain,’ belongs to 1729–31. The researches by which he accumulated material and the labour expended on his book told fatally on his constitution. It is a monument of his accuracy and judgment, but he died before the day of publication. His dedication to Sir Richard Ellys is dated 2 Jan. 1731–2. His last lecture was delivered at Newcastle on 7 or 8 Jan. He died on 12 Jan. 1731–2, aged 46, and was buried on 15 Jan. in the churchyard at Morpeth. His widow removed to Newcastle; her maiden name is not known. Wood says she was a daughter of Principal Hamilton of Edinburgh, who had been minister of Cramond (1694–1709), and thus accounts for Horsley's knowledge of the parish of Cramond; the statement seems based on a confusion with another John Horsley [see Horsley, Samuel], but Hamilton knew Horsley, and visited him on 15 Nov. 1727. He had a daughter, who married E. Randall, clerk to a merchant in the South Sea House, London; another daughter, who married Samuel Hallowell or Halliwell, a Newcastle surgeon; and a son, George, who was apprenticed (23 Dec. 1732) to Hallowell, and died young. His scientific apparatus was purchased by Caleb Rotheram (afterwards D.D.), who established a dissenting academy at Kendal in 1733; after Rotheram's death, by John Holt of Kirkdale, near Liverpool; then by the Warrington Academy, of which Holt be-
