in conjunction with Joseph Hurlock, gratuitous courses of lectures on materia medica at their hall to the apprentices and students, which resulted in the regular establishment of lectures by the society; and in 1815, by his exertions towards obtaining the act of parliament which enforced an efficient examination into the education and professional attainments of every candidate for practising as an apothecary in England and Wales. He also filled for a long period the office of deputy-treasurer, and latterly of treasurer, of that branch of the affairs of the Society of Apothecaries originally instituted for the supply of the members of their own body with genuine drugs and medicines, but which ultimately extended to the service of the navy, the East India Company, and the public generally. In 1831 Field was nominated by Sir Henry Halford, on the part of the general board of health, as one of the medical officers attached to the city of London board of health for the adoption of precautions against the threatened visitation of the cholera to the metropolis. In common with his colleagues Field afterwards received the thanks of the corporation and a piece of plate. He was also for many years the treasurer of the London Annuity Society for the benefit of the widows of apothecaries, in Chatham Place, Blackfriars, of which institution his father was the founder in 1765. Field died at Woodford, Essex, on 19 Dec. 1837. He married, 2 Sept. 1784, Esther, daughter of John Barron of Woolacre House, near Deptford, and by this lady, who died 16 Jan. 1834, he left six sons [see Field, Barron, and Field, Frederick, (1801–1885)] and two daughters. His portrait, by Pickersgill, is at Apothecaries' Hall; another, by Samuel Lane, was painted for the London Annuity Society. Besides contributing professional remarks to medical journals, Field wrote ‘Memoirs, historical and illustrative, of the Botanick Garden at Chelsea, belonging to the Society of Apothecaries of London,’ 8vo, London, 1820, which was printed at the expense of the society, to whom the manuscript had been presented. A new edition of this interesting little work, ‘revised, corrected, and continued to the present time by R. H. Semple,’ was issued in 1878. His introductory address, delivered on 11 Feb. 1835 at the first of the society's evening meetings for scientific purposes, was also printed by his colleagues.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. ix. 212–13.]
FIELD, HENRY IBBOT (1797–1848), pianist, born at Bath on 6 Dec. 1797, was the son of Thomas Field, for many years the organist at Bath Abbey, by his wife, Mary Harvey, who died 15 June 1815. The father died 21 Dec. 1831. Henry was the eldest of a family of seven children. He was educated first at Holdstock's academy, and afterwards at the Bath grammar school. At a very early age he showed his aptitude for music. He was taught by his father, and afterwards by James Morris Coombs, the organist of Chippenham. In 1807, being then just ten years of age, he performed for the first time in public, in a duet with his father. On 15 June 1830 he divided the honours of a duet with Johann Hummel, in their performance of that composer's grand sonata, œuvre 92. He was a singularly brilliant executant, and greatly esteemed throughout his career as a musical instructor. He was very popular in his native city, and generally known as ‘Field of Bath.’ He was a good scholar in French, Italian, Spanish, and German. While professionally in attendance as teacher of music at Prior Park College, Field in 1835 was converted to catholicism by the Rev. Dr. Gentili. He was formally received into that church by Bishop Baines during the winter of that year. He gave his last concert, in association with his sister, Mrs. Belville Penley, on 13 May 1848, in the Bath Assembly Rooms. While in the act of playing Wallace's ‘Cracovienne’ he was suddenly struck down by a paralytic seizure. He died on 19 May 1848, aged 50, at the house of his brother Frederick, the surgeon, in Northumberland Buildings.
[Information from Henry Field's niece, Mrs. Lansdowne; Bath Herald, 20 May 1848; Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, 24 May 1848; Athenæum, 27 May 1848, p. 540; Gent. Mag. new ser. xxx. 107; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, i. 519; Rev. James Shepherd's Reminiscences of Prior Park College, 1886, p. 9.]
FIELD or FEILD, JOHN (1520–1587), ‘proto-Copernican’ of England, son of Richard Field (d. 1542), was born, as is supposed, at Ardsley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, between 1520 and 1530. He received a liberal education, and Mr. Joseph Hunter, his descendant, conjectures that part of it was gained under the patronage of Alured Comyn, prior of St. Oswald's, from which house the cell of Woodkirk, near Ardsley, depended. Anthony à Wood believes that he studied at Oxford.
He published: 1. ‘Ephemeris anni 1557 currentis juxta Copernici et Reinholdi canones … per J. Feild … ad Meridianum Londinensem … supputata. Adjecta est Epistola J. Dee, qua vulgares istos Ephemeridum fictores reprehendit,’ London, 1556, 4to. 2. ‘Ephemerides trium annorum, an. 1558, 59 et 60 … ex Erasmi Reinoldi tabulis
