Page:A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices.djvu/41

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Bethune — Blackmore.
21
BETHUNE, JOHN ELLIOT DRINKWATER.
Indian Legislator.
1801— 1851.

Admitted 12 January, 1821.

Eldest son of John Drinkwater, of Fitzroy Square, the historian of the siege of Gibraltar. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and soon after his call to the Bar, 4 May, 1827, was employed as Counsel to the Home Office. In this position he drafted many important measures, including the Municipal Reform Act, the Tithe Commutation Act, and the County Courts Act. In 1848 he became a member of the Supreme Council of India, where he was helpful in passing many measures of reform, and where his name is identified with the establishment of a school for educating native girls of the higher classes, known as Bethune's Girls' School, now taken over by the State. He died at Calcutta, 12 Aug. 1851.

BEYNES. See BAYNES.


BICHENO, JAMES EBENEZER.
Colonial Minister.
1785—1851.

Admitted 29 November, 1816.

Only son of the Rev. James Bicheno, of Aston, Oxford, Nonconformist Minister. Before his call to the Bar he had written a pamphlet on the Nature of Benevolence (1817), which was an attack on the Poor Laws and their administration, and also a work on Criminal Jurisprudence (1819), and after his call on 17 May, 1822, he devoted himself chiefly to economic and scientific studies. He became a member of the chief learned societies, and Secretary to the Linnæan Society. In 1829, he made a tour through Ireland with Mr. Frederick Page (q.v.), a Bencher of his Inn, which resulted in the publication of a book on Ireland and its Economy (1830). In 1833 he sat on a Commission to inquire into the Condition of the Poor in Ireland, and assisted in drawing up its Reports. In 1842, he was appointed Colonial Secretary in Van Diemen's Land, where he died, 25 Feb. 1851. Besides the writings above mentioned, he contributed many papers to scientific journals on Botany and Natural History, His collection of plants is preserved in the Museum at Swansea.

BINGHAM, PEREGRINE.
Legal Writer.
1788—1864.

Admitted 24 April, 1811.

Eldest son of Rev. Peregrine Bingham, Rector of Edmondsham, Dorset. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and called to the Bar 27 Nov. 1818. He was a follower of Bentham, whose Book of Fallacies he edited, and a friend of the Austins, and a great contributor to the Westminster Review, under the editorship of John Stuart Mill. He became the Police Magistrate at Great Marlborough Street, but resigned about 1860. He died 2 Nov. 1864. He is known to lawyers chiefly by his Reports of Cases, from 1822 to 1840, published successively from 1824 to 1841; but he has left other works on Executions (1815); Infancy and Coverture (1816); On the Law of Landlord and Tenant (1820), and a System of Shorthand (1821).

Novelist.
1825—1900.

Admitted 27 January, 1849.

Second son of Rev. John Blackmore, of Ashford, near Barnstaple, Devon. He was born at Longworth, Berks, on 7 June, 1825, and educated at Oxford, where he matriculated in 1843, and graduated 1847. Though called