DALISON, Sir WILLIAM (d. 1559), judge, younger son of William Dalison of Laughton, Lincolnshire, sheriff and escheator of the county, by a daughter of George Wastneys of Haddon, Nottinghamshire, entered Gray's Inn in 1534, where he was called to the bar in 1537, elected reader in 1548 and again in 1552, on one of which occasions he gave a lecture on the statute 32 Henry VIII, c. 33, concerning wrongful disseisin, which is referred to in Dyer's ‘Reports’ (219 a) as a correct statement of the law. He took the degree of serjeant-at-law in 1552, receiving from his inn the sum of 5l. and a pair of gloves. In 1554 he was appointed one of the justices of the county palatine of Lancaster. In 1556 he was appointed a justice of the king's bench and knighted. His patent was renewed on the accession of Elizabeth (November 1558). He died in the following January, and was buried in Lincoln Cathedral. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Dighton of Sturton Parva, Lincolnshire, who survived him and married Sir Francis Ayscough, he had issue four sons and five daughters. His descendants settled in Kent, and are now represented in the female line by Maximilian Hammond Dalison of Hamptons, near Tunbridge. Dalison compiled a collection of cases decided during the reigns of Edward VI and Philip and Mary (Harl. MS. 5141). His so-called ‘Reports’ were published in the same volume with some by Serjeant Benloe in 1689; but the greater portion of those attributed to Dalison were decided after his death.
[Wotton's Baronetage, i. 180; Allen's Lincolnshire, i. 33; Berry's County Genealogies (Kent) 180; Dugdale's Orig. 137, 293; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 89, 91; Cal. State Papers (Dom. 1547–80), p. 61; Dyer's Reports, 123 a; 4th Rep. Dep.-Keeper Pub. Rec. app. ii. 255; Peck's Desid. Cur. Lib. viii. No. iv. 6; Burke's Landed Gentry; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]
DALL, NICHOLAS THOMAS (d. 1777), landscape-painter, was a Dane, who settled in London about 1760. He was a member of the Society of Artists. In 1761 he exhibited a ‘Piece of Ruins’ at the exhibition of that body. In 1768 he obtained the first premium of the Society of Arts for landscape-painting. He was elected associate of the Royal Academy in 1771 and exhibited constantly till his death. He was scene-painter at Covent Garden Theatre, and found there his principal employment. He exhibited at the Academy some Yorkshire landscapes, in which county he was employed by the Duke of Bolton, by Lord Harewood, and others. He died in Great Newport Street in the spring of 1777, leaving a widow and young family, for whom the managers of Covent Garden Theatre gave a benefit.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
DALLAM, GEORGE (17th cent.), organ-builder, was doubtless a member of the same family as Thomas, Robert, and Ralph Dallam [q. v.] Very little is known about him save that in 1686 he added a chaire (i.e. choir) organ to Harris' instrument at Hereford Cathedral, and that the sixth edition of Playford's ‘Introduction’ (1672) contains the following advertisement: ‘Mr. George Dalham, that excellent organ-maker, dwelleth now in Purple Lane, next door to the Crooked Billet, where such as desire to have new organs, or old mended, may be well accomodated.’
[Authorities as under Dallam, Thomas and Robert.]
DALLAM, RALPH (d. 1672), organ-builder, was probably a son of Thomas, and brother of Robert Dallam [q. v.] He built organs at Rugby, Hackney (in 1665), and Lynn Regis, and, according to Hawkins, built a small organ in the Music School, Oxford, for which he received 48l., ‘abating 10l. for the materials of the old organ,’ though it seems likely that this was the work of his more celebrated brother (?) Robert. At the Restoration he was employed to build an organ for St. George's Chapel, Windsor, but this proved so unsatisfactory that, ‘though a beautiful structure,’ it was replaced by one by Bernhardt Schmidt (‘Father Smith’). Dallam's organ is traditionally said to have been moved to St. Peter's, St. Albans, where there is still a very old instrument which may be partly his. In February 1672 Dallam and his partner, James White, began to build an organ in Greenwich parish church. He died while this work was still in progress, and White put up a stone to his memory at the west end of the south aisle in the following year.
[Authorities as under Dallam, Thomas and Robert; Strype's Appendix to Stow, ed. 1720, p. 93; information from the Rev. H. N. Dudding.]
DALLAM, ROBERT (1602–1665), organ-builder, a son of Thomas Dallam [q. v.], and, like his father, a member of the Blacksmiths' Company, was born in 1602, probably in London. Between 1624 and 1627 Dallam put up an organ in Durham Cathedral. This instrument remained there until 1687, when Father Smith, after putting in four new stops, sold the chaire organ for 100l. to St. Michael le
