tising himself, he published 'Indisputable Facts relative to the Suttonian Art of Inoculation, with Observations on its Discovery, Progress, &c.,' 8vo, Dublin, 1768. In 1770 he was admitted to an ad eundem degree of M.A. in Trinity College, Dublin, and was subsequently admitted M.B.. To eke out an income Houlton attempted dramatic writing and journalism, and supplied for the Dublin operatic stage such librettos as 'The Contract,' 1783; 'Double Stratagem,' 1784 (an alteration of 'The Contract'); 'Gibraltar,' 1784; 'Orpheus and Eurydice,' 1784; and 'Calypso,' 1785. In the spring of 1792 he returned to London, and was soon afterwards appointed editor of the 'Morning Herald'. Ill-health compelled him to resign this post in about a twelvemonth, and after a long and expensive illness he was committed to the Fleet prison for debt in 1795. In January 1796 Dr. Routh, president of Magdalen College, sent him some assistance in answer to his appeal. With the aid of James Hook [q. v.], who composed the music, Houlton brought out at Drury Lane Theatre on 21 Oct. 1800 his comic opera called 'Wilmore Castle,', which after running for five nights, had, the author avers, to be withdrawn in consequence of an organised attack (Preface to printed copy). Conceiving himself ill-used, he published a pamphlet entitled 'A Review of the Musical Drama of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, for... 1797–1800, which will tend to... elucidate Mrs. Plowden's late... publication [i.e. 'Virginia,' an opera, with a preface],' &c., 8vo, London, 1801.
[Bloxam's Reg. of Magd. Coll. Oxford. vi. 304–8; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, Baker's Biographia Dramatica (1812), i. 367, ii. 77, 108, 125, 173, 265, iii. 411.]
HOUSEMAN, JACOB (1636–1696), painter. [See Huysman.]
HOUSMAN, ROBERT (1759–1838), divine, born at Skerton, near Lancaster, on 25 Feb. 1759, was educated at the Lancaster free grammar school. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a local surgeon, but afterwards turned his attention to the church, and in 1780 went to Cambridge as a vicar at St. John's College. He took deacon's orders in October 1781, and served a curacy at Gargrave, Yorkshire. Returning to Cambridge he was ordained priest on 26 Oct. 1783, and became intimate with Charles Simeon and Henry Venn, friendships which deeply influenced his religious views. He graduated B.A. in 1784, and did not proceed beyond that degree. In 1788 he was curate at Langton, Leicestershire, in 1787 curate to the Rev. Thomas Robinson of Leicester, and he subsequently held curacies at Markfield and Foston, both near Leicester, as well as a lectureship at St. Martin's, Leicester. In 1795 he finally settled at Lancaster, where he built a new church (St. Anne's), of which he remained incumbent until his resignation in 1836. At first he met with much opposition on account of his evangelical teachings, though he ultimately became one of the most influential clergymen of the district and was styled 'the evangelist of Lancaster.' Housman died at Woodside near Liverpool, on 22 April 1838, and was burried at Skerton. In 1785 he married a Miss Audley, who died in the following winter. He married, secondly, on 24 Sept. 1788, Jane Adams of Langton, author of a popular tract called 'The History of Susan Ward.' She died on 27 Jan. 1837.
He published: 1. 'A Sermon preached at Lancaster, 1786,' which aroused some local controversy. 2. A volume of sermons preached at St. Martin's, Leicester, 1793. 3. 'The Pastoral Visitor, or a Summary of Christian Doctrine and Practice,' sixteen numbers, 1816-42. 4. 'Sermons preached in St. Anne's Chapel, Lancaster,' 1836.
[Life and Remains of the Rev. R. Housman, by his son, Robert Fletcher Housman, 1841 (with portrait); Funeral Sermon by J. Statter. 1838; Brit. Mas. Cat.]
HOUSTON, JOHN, M.D. (1802–1845), anatomist, born in the north of Ireland in 1802, was eldest son of a presbyterian minister, and brought up by his uncle, Dr. Joseph Taylor, physician to the forces. In 1819 he was apprenticed in Dublin to Mr. Shekleton, a young anatomist and founder of the Dublin College of Surgeon's Museum. He succeeded his master on his premature death in 1824 as curator of the museum, and held the office until 1841. The collection was greatly improved by him. In 1834 he published a catalogue of the normal preparations, and in 1840 one of the pathological. His descriptions are said to be both accurate and graphic (Butcher). He was also demonstrator of anatomy to the students at the College of Surgeons for a time after 1824. In 1826 he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh. In 1832 he was elected surgeon to the new City of Dublin Hospital, and in 1837 lecturer on surgery at the Park Street School of Medicine, the rich museum of which he catalogued in 1843. He was medical officer to several institutions in Dublin, and carried on a private practice in York Street. He died in his forty-fourth year at Dalkey on 30 July 1845, from a brain
