There he began his theological studies, and by 14 Dec. 1804 had received the tonsure and the four minor orders. He was ordained sub-deacon on 19 Dec. 1812, and deacon on 3 April 1813, being advanced to the priesthood on 9 July 1814. For several years he held his place at St. Cuthbert's College as one of the professors. In 1918 he was first sent on the mission to Chester. There he remained in charge for fourteen years until his nomination on 28 March 1832 as president of St. Cuthbert's, when he returned to Ushaw. In January 1833 he was raised to the episcopate as coadjutor of Bishop Penswick, and was consecrated on 29 Jan. 1833 as bishop of Trachis in Thessalia. On the death of Bishop Penswick, 28 Jan. 1836, Bishop Briggs succeeded him as vicar apostolic of the northern district. On 30 July 1840 the four vicariates, created in 1888 by Innocent XI, were newly portioned out into eight by Gregory XVI, Bishop Briggs's diocese being then restricted to Yorkshire, and his title thenceforth being vicar-apostolic of the Yorkshire district. Ten years afterwards, when Pius IX called the new catholic hierarchy into existence, Bishop Briggs was translated on 39 Sept. 1860 to Beverley. Having held that see for ten years, he at length, by reason of his increasing infirmities, resigned it on 7 Nov. 1860, and two months later, on 4 Jan. 1861, died in his seventy-third year at his house in York. On 10 Jan. he was buried in the old parochial church of St. Leonard at Hazlewood, Tadcaster, which among all the parish churches of England has the exceptional peculiarity of having remained uninterruptedly a catholic church ever since its foundation in 1286 by Sir William de Vavasour. The bishop was a count of the holy Roman empire, and a domestic prelate of his holiness, as well as assistant at the pontifical throne, He was remarkable for his lofty and commanding stature, and in his later years had a peculiarly noble and patriarchal presence. His chosen motto, which was justified by his years of episcopal rule, was characteristic, 'Non recuso laborem.'
[Brady's Episcopal Succession, 280. 341, 396-398; Annual Register for 1861, 407; Gent. Mag. January 1861, 232; Hull Advertiser, 12 Jan. 1861, 4-5; Tablet, 12 Jan. 1861, 17, 21.]
BRIGGS, JOHN (1785–1875), Indian officer, entered the Madras infantry in 1801, He took part in both the Mahratta wars of the present century, serving in the campaign which ended that eventful struggle as a political officer under Sir John Malcolm, whom he had previously accompanied on his mission to Persia in 1810. He was one of Mountstuart Elphinstone's assistants in the Dekhan, subsequently served in Khandesh, and succeeded Captain Grant Duff as resident at Sattára, after which, in 1831, he was appointed senior member of the board of commissioners for the government of Mysore when the administration of that state was assumed by the British government owing to the misrule of the maharájá. His appointment to this office, which was made by the governor-general, Lord William Bentinck, was not agreeable to the government of Madras, and after a somewhat stormy tenure of office, which lasted barely a year, Briggs resigned his post in September 1832, and was transferred to the residency of Nágpur, where he remained until 1835. In that year he left India, and never returned. In 1838 he attained the military rank of major-general. After his return to England he took a prominent part as a member of the court of proprietors of the East India Company in the discussion of Indian affairs, and was a vigorous opponent of Lord Dalhousie's annexation policy. He was also an active member of the Anti-Corn-law League. He was a good Persian scholar, and translated Ferishta's 'Mohammadan Power in India,' and the 'Siyar-ul-Murákhirin,' which recorded the decline of the Moghul power. He was also the author of an essay on the land tax of India, and in a series of 'Letters addressed to a young person in India' he discussed in a light but instructive style various questions bearing upon the conduct of young Indian officers, civil and military, and especially their treatment of the natives. Briggs was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his proficiency in oriental literature. He died at Burgess Hill, Sussex, on 27 April 1875, at the age of eighty-nine.
[Allen's Indian Mail. 1875; Letters addressed to a Young Person in India, by Lieutenant-colonel John Briggs, late Resident at Sattára; On the Land Tax of India. &c., by Lieutenant-colonel John Briggs, London, 1830; Memoir of General John Briggs, by Major Evans Bell, London, 1885.]
BRIGGS, JOHN JOSEPH (1819–1876), naturalist and topographer, was born in the village of King's Newton, near Melbourne, Derbyshire, 6 March 1819. His father, John Briggs, who married his cousin, Mary Briggs, was born and resided for eighty-eight years on the same farm, at King's Newton, which had been the freehold of his ancestors for three centuries. John Joseph went, in 1828, to the boarding school of Mr. Thomas Rossel Potter,
