Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/387

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Tate
381
Tatham

died at his residence, 51 Catherine Street, Liverpool, on 18 Feb. 1888, and was buried at Highgate, London. He was twice married; his second wife survived him. Three children were living at the date of his death.

Tate made many original and valuable researches in mathematical and experimental science. He contributed articles to the 'Philosophical Magazine,' and, in conjunction with Sir William Fairbairn, was the author of memoirs, published in the transactions of the Royal Society, on the vapour-tension of superheated steam, the strength of materials in relation to the construction of iron ships, the strength of glass tubes, and the elasticity of sulphuric acid. He was the inventor of the double-piston air-pump that is known by his name.

Tate was the author of numerous educational works on mathematics, mechanics, drawing, and natural science, all tending to promote intellectual methods of instruction. His 'Principles of Geometry, Mensuration, Trigonometry, Land Surveying, and Levelling' (London, 1848, 12mo) was translated into: Hindustani. His 'Philosophy of Education' (London, 1854, 8vo) reached a third edition in 1860. From 1853 to 1855, in company with James Tilleard, he edited the 'Educational Expositor,' a work designed to assist schoolmasters and teachers. In 1856 he began to publish 'Mathematics for Working Men,' London, 8vo, but only one part appeared.

[Tate's History of Alnwick; private information; Times, 2 March 1888; Liverpool Courier, March 1888; Todhunter's History of the Theory of Electricity, passim; Pole's Life of Fairbairn, 1877, pp. 211, 270, 273, 421.]

S. W-n.


TATE, WILLIAM (1750?–1806), portrait-painter, was born about 1750, probably at Liverpool. He studied under Joseph Wright [q. v.] of Derby, practised as a portrait-painter in Liverpool, and in 1774 was an exhibitor at the first and only exhibition of the Society of Artists of that town. In 1784 he took part in forming a second society, and had seven portraits and one subject-picture ('Belisarius and his Daughter') in their first exhibition (1784). In their second exhibition (1787) he was again represented. Meanwhile he had removed to Manchester, after, it is said, a short residence in London. He was a member of the Incorporated Society, exhibiting twelve portraits there, as well as twelve at the Royal Academy, between 1771 and 1804. From Manchester he removed to Bath, where he died on 2 June 1806.

[Bryan's Dict. of Painters; Mayer's Early Art in Liverpool; Gent. Mag. 1806. ii. 677.]

A. N.


TATHAM, CHARLES HEATHCOTE (1772–1842), architect, born on 8 Feb. 1772 in Duke Street, Westminster, was the youngest of five sons of Ralph Tatham of Stockton in Durham, by his wife Elizabeth Bloxham, the daughter of a hosier in Cateaton Street. The father was in later life private secretary to Captain (afterwards Lord) Rodney.

Charles was educated at Louth grammar school in Lincolnshire. Returning to London at the age of sixteen, he was engaged as a clerk by Samuel Pepys Cockerell [q. v.], architect and surveyor. Learning nothing there, as he thought, he ran away, and returned to his mother's lodgings, where he remained working hard for a year or more at the five orders of architecture and French ornament and studying mathematics. When he was nearly nineteen Henry Holland (1746?-1806) [q.v.], the Prince of Wales's architect in the alterations of Carlton House and the Pavilion, Brighton, received him into his house, and two years later offered him 60l. a year for two years to enable him to pursue his studies at Rome. At Holland's office Tatham designed and drew at large all the ornamental decorations for Drury Lane Theatre. The whole proscenium was pricked off from his drawings by Charles Catton the younger [q. v.], who painted the designs in fresco. With Holland's help, and a loan of 100l. from John Birch, surgeon-extraordinary to the king, he felt justified in May 1794 in starting for Italy. Until 1797 he spent his time most industriously, chiefly in Rome and Naples in company with Signor Asprucci, architect to Prince Borghese and Don Isidoro Velasquez, an exhibitioner from the academy of Madrid, both, like Tatham, students of classical architecture. Tatham's chief friends during his stay in Italy were Canova, Madame Angelica Kauffmann and her husband; Abbate Carlo Bonomi, brother of Joseph Bonomi, R. A.; Sir William and Lady Hamilton at Naples; and lastly, Frederick Howard, fifth earl of Carlisle [q. v.], to whose long friendship and patronage he owed much of his success. He left Rome a month or so before Bonaparte's first attack on the papal states in 1797; returning through Dresden, Berlin, and Prague, and making architectural drawings on the way. As the result of his studies he etched and published in 1799 'Ancient Ornamental Architecture at Rome and in Italy.' A second edition, containing more than a hundred plates, appeared in 1803, and a German translation was published at Weimar in 1805. His old master, Holland, had also commissioned him to collect in