Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/220

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Muirhead
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Muirhead

entertaining material for the parliamentary history of the period. He died at his house in Onslow Gardens on 22 April 1899, and was buried at Strathfield Mortimer on the 27th. A portrait, painted by Mr. Sargent in 1893, is reproduced as frontispiece to Mowbray's 'Seventy Years at Westminster.' A bronze bust of Mowbray by Mr. Conrad Dressier was on 22 April 1901 unveiled by Mr. Speaker Gully in committee-room No. 14 in the House of Commons. By his wife, who predeceased him on 16 Feb. 1899, aged 76, he left issue three sons and two daughters; the eldest son, Robert Gray Cornish Mowbray, who succeeded as second baronet, was sometime fellow of All Souls' and M.P. for the Prestwich division of Lancashire from 1886 to 1895, and since 1900 M.P. for Brixton.

[Mowbray's Seventy Years at Westminster, 1900; Barker and Stenning's Westm. Seh. Reg.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886, and Men at the Bar; Burke's Peerage, 1900; Official Ret. Memb. of Parl.; Hansard's Parl. Debates; Times, 18 Feb. and 24, 26, and 28 April 1899.]

A. F. P.

MUIRHEAD, GEORGE (1715–1773), professor at Glasgow University, born on 24 June 1715, was second son of John Muirhead of Teggetsheugh, Stirlingshire, a patrimony held for generations by this branch of the Muirheads of Lauchop. Matriculating at Glasgow in 1728, and graduating M.A. Edinburgh in 1742, he was in 1746 ordained minister of Mingaff, Wigtonshire, and within a year was promoted to the parish of Dysart in Fife. In December 1762 he resigned this charge, on being elected professor of oriental languages in the university of Glasgow, and on 2 Dec. 1754 he was promoted to the chair of humanity, which he held with distinction till his death on 31 Aug. 1773. He was 'an enthusiastic and accomplished classical scholar,' and with James Moor [q. v.], professor of Greek, superintended the noble edition of Homer in 4 vols. fol., printed by Robert and Andrew Foulis of Glasgow (the 'Iliad' in 1756, the 'Odyssey,' with the 'Hymns' and 'Fragments,' in 1758). He also supervised the equally beautiful edition of Virgil, printed somewhat later under the same auspices. In memory of Muirhead his surviving brothers (John of Teggetsheugh, and Patrick, 1718-1807, who succeeded George as minister of Dysart) founded in 1776, with a gift of 100l., the 'Muirhead Prizes,' which are given annually in the humanity class of Glasgow College.

[Nisbet's Heraldry; Account of the Family of the Muirheads of Lachop, a very rare work, n. d., but, from internal evidence, about 1750; Memorials of the Rev. Robert Morehead, D.D. (with supplementary note on the Family of Muirhead or Morehead of Lauchop), by Charles Morehead; Deeds instituting Bursaries, Scholarships, and other Foundations in the College and University of Glasgow, printed for the Maitland Club, 1850; the Snell Exhibitions, by W. Innes Addison; private information.]

B. M. S.

MUIRHEAD, JAMES PATRICK (1813–1898), biographer of James Watt the engineer, born 26 July 1818 at The Grove, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, was son of Lockhart Muirhead, LL.D. George Muirhead [q. v. Suppl.] was his great-uncle. His grandfather, Patrick Muirhead, minister of Dysart, was principal librarian, and from 1808 to 1829 regius professor 'of natural history, in Glasgow University; he married, in 1804, his cousin, Anne Campbell (of the Ballochlaven family), whose mother (born Muirhead) was first cousin of James Watt, and left a valuable manuscript record of the great engineer's youth.

James Patrick was educated first at Glasgow College, where between 1826 and 1832 his name appears frequently in the prize lists (especially for Latin verse). Gaining on 3 Feb. 1832 a Snell exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, he matriculated there on 6 April 1832; but spending his long vacations in Alpine expeditions, and in the study of German rather than in working for honours, he only took a third class in lit. hum. on graduating B.A. in 1835 (M.A. 1838). Admitted advocate at Edinburgh in 1838, he published during the same year 'Disputatio Juridica ad Lib. XII. Tit. ii. Digest = de Jurejurando sive voluntario sive necessario sive Judiciali,' and for eight years he practised law in Edinburgh. In 1844 he married Katharine Elizabeth, second daughter of Matthew Robinson Boulton of Tew Park and Soho. His wife fully shared his classical and literary tastes, but she found the climate of Edinburgh so uncongenial that in 1846 Muirhead gave up a promising career at the Scottish bar, and eventually (1847) settled at Haseley Court, Oxfordshire, a property of his wife's family. While still at Oxford he had become acquainted with his kinsman, the great engineer's son, James Watt (the younger) of Aston Hall, Birmingham. Disabled by growing infirmities from writing a long-contemplated memoir of his father, the younger Watt decided to commit the task to Muirhead. Thenceforth Muirhead was mainly occupied on this labour. The first fruits of this employment was the issue in 1839 of Muirhead's translation (with original notes and appendix) of Arago's 'Eloge Historique de James Watt,' as read before the Académie