chancellor of the exchequer, urging that the government should secure the savings of the working classes. This was the origin of the scheme for post-office savings banks. Sir Rowland Hill [q. v.], Frank Ives Scudamore [q. v.], and others connected with the post office were induced to patronise the project, and in 1860 Mr. Gladstone carried it into effect. ‘In recognition of the important part taken by him in introducing the system of post-office savings banks now so widely and so beneficially in operation,’ Sikes was knighted in 1881. He died unmarried on 15 Oct. 1889 at Birkby Lodge, Huddersfield. His portrait hangs in the Huddersfield council-chamber.
[Men of the Time, 11th edit. p. 992; Huddersfield Chronicle, 16 Oct. 1889.]
SILLERY, CHARLES DOYNE (1807–1837), poet, born at Athlone on 2 March 1807, was the son of an Irish artillery officer, Charles Doyne Sillery, a native of Drogheda, who died of wounds received at Talavera. The son entered the navy at an early age, serving as a midshipman on a voyage to China and India. Delicate health prevented him from following a naval career, and in 1828 he settled in Edinburgh, in order to study surgery at the university there. The university records make no mention of him after 1829. He died at Edinburgh on 16 May 1837. Besides three small volumes of a deeply religious tendency, entitled respectively ‘A Discourse on the Sufferings of Our Saviour’ (1833), ‘An Essay on the Creation of the Universe’ (1833), and ‘The Man of Sorrows,’ published posthumously, he published the following volumes of verse: 1. ‘Vallery, or the Citadel of the Lake,’ 2 vols. 12mo, Edinburgh, 1829. 2. ‘Eldred of Erin,’ a poem in Spenserian stanza, 12mo, Edinburgh, 1833. 3. ‘The Royal Marines and other Poems,’ 8vo, London, 1833. 4. ‘The Exiles of Chamouni,’ a dramatic poem, 1834. Several of his poems have obtained a permanent place in Scottish anthologies.
[Allibone's Dict. of English Lit.; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland; Rev. C. Rogers's Scottish Poets; information kindly given by H. A. Webster, esq., librarian of Edinburgh University.]
SILLETT, JAMES (1764–1840), painter, son of James Sillett of Eye, Suffolk, was born at Norwich in 1764, and, after working there for a time as an heraldic painter, came to London, where he was employed as a copyist by the Polygraphic Society. From 1787 to 1790 he studied in the schools of the Royal Academy. He became a good miniaturist, and also painted game, fruit, and flowers with considerable skill; he was an exhibitor of works of this class at the Royal Academy from 1796 to 1837. About 1804 Sillett went to reside at Lynn, where he taught drawing and made the illustrations for Richards's ‘History of Lynn,’ published in 1812. In 1810 he removed to Norwich, where he passed the remainder of his life in the constant practice of his art. He was president of the Norwich Society of Artists in 1815, but was one of the seceders from the original body. He published in 1826 ‘A Grammar of Flower Painting,’ and in 1828 a set of fifty-nine views of public edifices in Norwich. He died at Norwich on 6 May 1840. He had married in 1801 Ann Banyard of East Dereham, through whom he became possessed of some property. Sillett left a daughter Emma, who was well known as a flower-painter, and a son, James Banyard Sillett, who survives.
[Art Union, 1840, p. 91; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1893; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 39, 135, 194, 358; information from James Reeve, esq., of Norwich.]
SILVER, GEORGE (fl. 1599), writer on fencing, describes himself on the title-page of his treatise on fencing as a ‘gentleman,’ and states that he was an adept at fencing with the short sword, which he claimed to be the Englishman's national weapon. The favour accorded by Englishmen of rank to Italian fencing-masters who taught the use of the long rapier angered him, and he was especially contemptuous of the popularity achieved by the ‘Practice’ (1595) of Vincentio Saviolo [q. v.], the chief Italian teacher in London, who denied the ‘cunning’ of the English fencers. Silver and his brother Toby tried in vain to arrange a public meeting with Saviolo and his fellow-countryman, Jeronimo. They placarded London, Southwark, and Westminster with their challenges, but, although they had a chance scrimmage with some Italian fencers and their friends in a house of entertainment, no formal fight came off. To prove his contention Silver ultimately published in 1599 (with two illustrations) his ‘Paradoxes of Defence, wherein is proved the true grounds of fight to be in the short auncient weapons, and that the short sword hath aduantage of the long sword or long rapier. And the weaknesse and imperfection of the rapier fights displayed. Together with an admonition to … Englishmen to beware of false teachers of defence’ (London, for Edward Blount). The work was dedicated to Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex, the patron of Saviolo. There is appended ‘A Briefe note of three Italian teachers of offence,
