BIDGOOD, JOHN, M.D. (1624–1690), the son of Humphrey Bidgood, an apothecary of Exeter, was born in that city 13 March 1623-4. His father was poisoned in 1641 by his servant, Peter Moore, a crime for which the offender was tried at the Exeter assizes, and executed on 'the Magdalen gibbet belonging to the city,' his dying confession being printed and preserved in the British Museum. The son was sent to Exeter College about 1640, and admitted a Petreian fellow 1 July 1642. On 1 Feb. 1647-8 he became a bachelor of physic at Oxford, but in the following June was ejected from his fellowship by the parliamentarian visitors. After this loss of his income he withdrew to Padua, then a noted school of medicine, and became M.D. of that university. With this diploma he returned to England, and, after a few years' practice at Chard, settled in his native city, where he remained until his death. On the restoration in 1660, Bidgood resumed his fellowship, and in the same year (20 Sept. 1660) was incorporated M.D. at Oxford. Two years later he resigned his fellowship, possibly because a kinsman, who had matriculated in 1661, was then qualified to hold it. His skill in medicine was shown by his admission, in December 1664, to the College of Physicians in London as honorary fellow—an honour which he acknowledged by the gift of 100l. towards the erection of their new college in Warwick Lane—and by his subsequent election in 1686 as an ordinary fellow. Some years before his death he retired to his country house of Rockbeare, near Exeter, but he died in the Close, Exeter, 13 Jan. 1690-1, and was buried in the lady chapel in the cathedral. A flat stone, with an English inscription, in the pavement indicated the place of his burial, and a marble monument with a Latin inscription to his memory was fixed in the wall of the same chapel by his nephew and heir. An extensive practice brought Dr. Bidgood a large fortune, but his good qualities were marred by a morose disposition and by a satirical vein of humour. He left the sum of 600l. to St. John's Hospital at Exeter.
[Prince's Worthies; Munk's College of Physicians (ed. 1878). i. 348; Boase's Exeter Coll. 7, 212, 229; Davidson's Bibliotheca Devon. 138; Izacke's Exeter (ed. 1731), p. 189; Register of Visitors of Oxford Univ. (Camden Soc. 1881), pp. 13, 60, 98, 188.]
BIDLAKE, JOHN (1755–1814), divine and poet, was the son of a jeweller at Plymouth, and was born in that town in 1765. His education was begun at the grammar school of that town, and he proceeded thence to Christ Church, Oxford, being entered on its books as a servitor 10 March 1774, where he took his degree of B.A. in 1778, and those of M.A. and D.D. in 1808. He was for many years master of the Plymouth grammar school, and minister of the chapel of ease at Stonehouse. Neither of these posts brought much gain to their holder, nor were his pecuniary troubles lightened by his obtaining the offices of chaplain to the prince regent and the Duke of Clarence. He was appointed Bampton lecturer in 1811, but during the delivery of the third discourse he was attacked with cerebral affection, which terminated in blindness. In consequence of this crushing misfortune he was forced to resign his curacy at Stonehouse, and as he was totally without the means of support, an appeal to the charitable was made on his behalf in June 1818. On 17 Feb. in the following year he died at Plymouth.
Bidlake's works were very numerous, both in divinity and poetry. He published separately at least seven sermons, in addition to three volumes of collected discourses on various subjects (1795, 1799, and 1808). His earliest poem was an anonymous 'Elegy written on the author's revisiting the place of his former residence' (1788). It was followed by 'The Sea' (1796), 'The Country Parson' (1797), 'Summer's Eve' (1800), 'Virginia or the Fall of the Decemvirs, a tragedy' (1800), 'Youth' (1802), and 'The Year' (1813). Three volumes of his poetical works were issued in 1794, 1804, and 1814 respectively. In 1799 he composed a moral tale entitled 'Eugenio, or the Precepts of Prudentius,' and in 1808 he issued an 'Introduction to the Study of Geography.' His Bampton lectures were entitled 'The Truth and Consistency of Divine Revelation' (1811). Three numbers of a periodical called 'The Selector ' were published by him at Plymouth in 1809, but with the third number it expired. Bidlake was a man of varied talents and considerable acquirements, but his poetry was imitative, and the interest of his theological works was ephemeral.
[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Gent. Mag. 1813. pt. i. 560, 1814, pt. i. 410; Worth's Plymouth (2nd ed.) p. 322; Worth's Three Towns Bibliotheca (Trans. Plymouth Instit. vol. iv.]
BIDWILL, JOHN CARNE (1815–1853), botanist and traveller, was born in 1815 at Exeter, his father being a well-known citizen of that place. At an early age he went out to New South Wales, and entered into business as a merchant at Sydney. In February 1839 he started upon an exploring expedition in New Zealand. From Tawranga
