MEADOWS, JOSEPH KENNY (1790–1874), draughtsman, born at Cardigan in South Wales, and baptised on 1 Nov. 1790, was the son of James Meadows, a retired naval officer. Details of his early life are wanting. In 1823 he designed and lithographed the plates for Planché's ‘Costume of Shakespeare's Historical Tragedy of King John.’ The ‘Heads of the People, or Portraits of the English,’ published in 1838–40, and to which Thackeray and Douglas Jerrold contributed some of their earliest sketches, established his popularity as an artist. But the chief ambition of his life was to produce an illustrated edition of Shakespeare, and this he accomplished between 1839 and 1843. The wit and graceful fancy of his art here had free scope, and although the designs are often forced and affected, the work was a great success. So popular, indeed, was his conception of Falstaff that a bronze statuette was modelled after it in Germany, and had a large sale. His services were eagerly sought as an illustrator of children's books and fanciful stories, and for many years he was employed on the Christmas numbers of the ‘Illustrated London News.’ He was one of the first to introduce wood engraving among English publishers as a means of cheap and popular illustration. He painted sometimes in oil, and on two or three occasions he exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists. Many of his best years were passed in intimate friendship with Leigh Hunt, Laman Blanchard, Douglas Jerrold, Dickens, Thackeray, Stanfield, Roberts, and the Landseers.
Meadows married a daughter of John Henning [q. v.] the sculptor, and in 1864 was granted a civil list pension of 80l. ‘in acknowledgment of his merit as an artist, more especially shown by his illustrations of Shakespeare.’ Up to the last he was a hale and vigorous old man. He died, at the age of eighty-four, at 458 King's Road, Chelsea, on 19 Aug. 1874, and was buried in the St. Pancras cemetery at Finchley. Besides those already mentioned, Meadows illustrated, either wholly or in part, the following among other works: ‘The Autobiography of a notorious Legal Functionary (Jack Ketch),’ 1836; ‘Songs of Home, or Lays of Married Life,’ 1840; Hall's ‘Book of British Ballads,’ 1842; Dean Swift's ‘Hints to Servants,’ 1843; ‘Punch's Complete Letter Writer,’ by Douglas Jerrold, 1845; the New Testament, 1847; Mrs. S. C. Hall's ‘Midsummer Eve,’ 1848; the Brothers Mayhew's ‘Magic of Kindness,’ in conjunction with George Cruikshank, 1849; ‘The Illustrated Byron,’ 1854–6; Laman Blanchard's ‘Corporation Characters,’ 1855; ‘Merry Pictures by the Comic Hands of H. K. Browne and others,’ 1857; ‘Granny's Wonderful Chair, and its Tales of Fairy Times,’ by Frances Browne, 1857; ‘The Sydenham Sindbad,’ 1857; Captain Crawley's ‘Backgammon,’ 1858; ‘Pearls of Shakespeare,’ 1860; Greene's ‘Winter and Summer at Burton Hall,’ 1861; and ‘Don Quixote,’ 1872.
[Academy, 1874, ii. 360, by Mrs. Heaton; Athenæum, 1874, ii. 326; Art Journal, 1874, p. 306; Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves and Armstrong, 1886–9, ii. 767; information from the Rev. W. Cynog Davies, vicar of Cardigan.]
MEADOWS, Sir PHILIP (1626–1718), diplomatist, baptised at Chattisham, Suffolk, on 4 Jan. 1625–6 (Page, Suffolk, p. 13), was fifth son of Daniel Meadowe (1571–1651) of Chattisham, by his wife Elizabeth, and grandson of William Meddowe or Meadowe (d. 1588), as the name was anciently spelt, of Witnesham. Philip was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, whence he graduated M.A. In October 1653 he was appointed, on Thurloe's recommendation, Latin secretary to Cromwell's council at a salary of 100l., soon augmented to 200l. a year. The appointment was made in order to relieve Milton, who was then receiving 15s. 10½d. a day from the council, but whose blindness incapacitated him from the full discharge of his duties, and who virtually became henceforth ‘Latin secretary extraordinary’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1653–4, p. 386). The poet would have preferred the appointment of Andrew Marvell (in whose interest he wrote to Bradshaw) as his assistant; but Meadows soon gave complete satisfaction, and henceforth did the bulk of the routine work in the department (Masson, Milton, iv. 479, 526, 575–80). In March 1656 he was selected to represent the Lord Protector at Lisbon in respect to the ratification of the treaty between England and Portugal, and he sailed from Portsmouth in the Phœnix, Captain Whetstone, on the 11th of the month (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1655–6, pp. 236, 503–4). Good news received from him in July were qualified by the report that he had been insulted and ‘maimed’ in the execution of his duty (ib.; and cf. Cal. of Clarendon State Papers, iii. 154); lands to the value of 100l. a year were granted to him by way of compensation; but no confiscated property of precisely the right amount being instantly available, this was commuted by a lump sum of 1,000l. Meadows returned from Lisbon in the Phœnix towards the end of November. In February 1657 it was decided to send him as envoy to Frederick III,
