HESLOP, LUKE (1738–1825), archdeacon of Buckingham, was born and baptised on St. Luke's day, 18 Oct. 1738. He was admitted a sizar at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 30 May 1760; was appointed chapel clerk on 31 Oct. following; was elected a Sterne scholar 19 Oct. 1764, a Spencer scholar November 1764, and a fellow of his college 26 Jan. 1769. In 1764 he was senior wrangler. He graduated B.A. 1764, M.A. 1767, and B.D. 1775. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the professorship of chemistry in 1771, but served as moderator (1772–3). John Green [q.v.] , bishop of Lincoln, a former master of Corpus Christi, appointed Heslop his examining chaplain, and on 2 Sept. 1778 collated him to the archdeaconry of Buckingham, together with a prebendal stall at Lincoln. On 28 Sept. 1776 he was appointed prebendary in St. Paul's Cathedral and vicar of St. Peter-le-Poor, London. He was subsequently rector of Adstock, Buckinghamshire, for upwards of twenty-five years, holding in addition during the latter part of the period the rectory of Addington. In 1803 he became rector of Bothal in Northumberland, but soon resigned the living on being appointed rector of St. Marylebone, London, and vicar of St. Augustine's in Bristol. In 1809 he settled in Marylebone and devoted himself to his extensive parish. Few men ever held successively more church preferments, yet he died a comparatively poor man at 27 Nottingham Place, Marylebone, on 23 June 1825, aged 86. His constitution was remarkably vigorous, and for eighty years he never suffered from ill-health. He was buried in the new church of St. Marylebone. He married in 1773 Dorothy, daughter of Dr. Reeve. She died at Bury, 28 Dec. 1827. Heslop was the author of two sermons and a charge (1807) and of: 1. ‘Observations on the Statute of 31 Geo. II, c. 29, concerning the Assize of Bread,’ 1799, 4to. 2. ‘A Comparative Statement of the Food produced from Arable and Grass Land and the returns from each, with Observations on Inclosures and the Effect of an Act for Enclosing Commons,’ 1801, 4to. 3. ‘Observations on the Duty of Property,’ 1805.
[Gent. Mag. 1826, pt. i. pp. 89–90, 386; Masters's History of Corpus Christi (Lamb's Continuation), 1831, pp. 409–10; information from Dr. Edward H. Perowne, master of Corpus Christi College.]
HESLOP, THOMAS PRETIOUS (1823–1885), physician, was born in the West Indies in 1823, his father being a Scottish officer of artillery, and his mother an Irish lady named Owen. His youth was spent with his uncle, Dr. Underhill of Tipton, Staffordshire, by whom he was educated for the medical profession. He completed his course at Dublin and Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1848. After being house-physician to the General Hospital, Birmingham, from 1848 to 1852, Heslop was lecturer on physiology at Queen's College, Birmingham, from 1853 to 1858, and physician to the Queen's Hospital from 1853 to 1860 and from 1870 to 1882. He actively promoted the establishment of the Women's Hospital, the Free Hospital for Children, and the Skin and Lock Hospital at Birmingham, and of the Birmingham Medical Institute. He did important work as a governor of King Edward's Grammar School, and as chairman of Mason's College; to the latter institution he gave a library of eleven thousand books. He died near Braemar on 17 June 1885, of angina pectoris, and was buried at Dublin on 20 June. Heslop wrote ‘The Realities of Medical Attendance on the Sick Children of the Poor in Large Towns,’ 1869.
[Birmingham Daily Post, 18, 19, 20 June 1885.]
HESSE-HOMBURG, Langravine of (1770–1840). [See Elizabeth, Princess.]
HESSEL, PHŒBE (1713?–1821), reputed female soldier and centenarian, was buried, according to the registers of Brighthelmstone (Brighton) parish, Sussex, on 16 Dec. 1821, at the age of 108 years (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. i. 222). A tombstone in Brighton churchyard, erected by a local tradesman soon afterwards, relates that Phœbe Hessel, born in Stepney in 1713, ‘served in many parts of Europe as a private soldier in the 5th regiment of foot,’ and that she was wounded at Fontenoy (where the 5th foot was not present), and died 12 Dec. 1821 (ib., 1st ser. vi. 170). Different writers, among them Erredge, the Brighton historian, and Hone (Year-Book, p. 210), give portraits of her as a well-known ‘character’ in Brighton, accompanied by accounts of her military career taken down from her own lips. It is not unlikely that she had served in the ranks, and if not actually a centenarian attained a great age; but the stories, as given, are utterly inconsistent with each other and with the facts of regimental history.
[The facts have been fully discussed in Nav. and Mil. Gaz., 1853, p. 630 and by Mr. W. J. Thoms in Notes and Queries, 5th ser. i. 222 et seq.]
HESTER, JOHN (d. 1593), distiller, or, as he styled himself, ‘practitioner in the Spagericall Arte,’ carried on business at Paul's
