south-west part of the state, on the Still river, a tributary of the Housatonic. Pop. (1890) 16,552; (1900) 16,537 (3702 foreign-born); (1910) 20,234. In 1900 the population of the township, including that of the city, was 19,474, and in 1910, 23,502. Danbury is served by three divisions of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway; by the Danbury & Harlem electric railway, which connects at Goldens Bridge, New York, with the Harlem division of the New York Central; and by an electric line to Bethel, Connecticut. Lake Kenosia, about 212 m. from the centre of the city, is a pleasure resort. A state normal school was opened in Danbury in 1904, and there is a home for destitute and homeless children under private (unsectarian) control. The city has good water-power, and the municipality owns the water works. The principal industry is the manufacture of felt hats, begun in 1780, and in 1905 engaging about thirty factories, with a product for the year valued at $5,798,107 (71.9% of the value of all the factory products of the city, and 15.8% of the value of all the felt hats produced in the United States). The city ranked first among the cities of the country in this industry in 1900 and second in 1905, and in 1905 no other city showed so high a degree of specialization in it. Silver-plated ware (mostly manufactured by Rogers Bros.) is another important product. At Danbury is held annually the well-known agricultural Danbury Fair. The township was settled in 1684 by emigrants from Norwalk, and received its present name in 1687. When the War of Independence opened, Enoch Crosby, believed to be the original of Harvey Birch, the hero of J. F. Cooper’s The Spy, was a resident of Danbury. A depot of military supplies was established in the village of Danbury in 1776; in April 1777 Governor William Tryon, of New York, raided the place, destroying the military stores and considerable private property. During his retreat he was attacked (April 26th) at Ridgefield (about 9 m. south by east of Danbury) by the Americans under General David Wooster (1710–1777), who was fatally wounded in the conflict (being succeeded by General Benedict Arnold), and to whose memory a monument was erected in Danbury in 1854. Danbury was chartered as a borough in 1832 and as a city in 1880. In 1870 the Danbury News was established by the consolidation of the Jeffersonian and the Times, by James Montgomery Bailey (1841–1894), from 1865 to 1870 proprietor of the Times. He wrote for the News humorous sketches, which made him and the paper famous, Bailey being known as the “Danbury News Man”; among his books are Life in Danbury (1873), The Danbury News Man’s Almanac (1873), They All Do It (1877), England from a Back Window (1878), Mr Philip’s Goneness (1879), The Danbury Boom (1880), and History of Danbury (1896).
DANBY, FRANCIS (1793–1861), English painter, was born in
the south of Ireland on the 16th of November 1793. His father
farmed a small property he owned near Wexford, but his death
caused the family to remove to Dublin, while Francis was still a
schoolboy. He began to practice drawing at the Royal Dublin
Society’s schools; and under an erratic young artist named
O’Connor he began painting landscape. Danby also made
acquaintance with George Petrie, and all three left for London
together in 1813. This expedition, undertaken with very inadequate
funds, quickly came to an end, and they had to get
home again by walking. At Bristol they made a pause, and
Danby, finding he could get trifling sums for water-colour
drawings, remained there working diligently and sending to the
London exhibitions pictures of importance. There his large
pictures in oil quickly attracted attention. “The Upas Tree”
(1820) and “The Delivery of the Israelites” (1825) brought
him his election as an associate of the Royal Academy. He left
Bristol for London, and in 1828 exhibited his “Opening of the
Sixth Seal” at the British Institution, receiving from that body
a prize of 200 guineas; and this picture was followed by two
others from the Apocalypse. He suddenly left London, declaring
that he would never live there again, and that the Academy,
instead of aiding him, had, somehow or other, used him badly.
Some insurmountable domestic difficulty overtook him also, and
for eleven or twelve years he lived on the Lake of Geneva, a
Bohemian with boat-building fancies, painting only now and
then. He returned to England in 1841, when his sons, James
and Thomas, both artists, were growing up. Other pictures by
him were “The Golden Age” and “The Evening Gun,” the
first begun before he left England, the second painted after his
return; he had taken up his abode at Exmouth, where he died
on the 9th of February 1861.
DANCE, the name of an English family distinguished in architecture, art and the drama. George Dance, the elder (1700–1768), obtained the appointment of architect to the city of London, and designed the Mansion House (1739); the churches of St Botolph, Aldgate (1741), St Luke’s, Old Street; St Leonard, Shoreditch; the old excise office; Broad Street; and
other public works of importance. He died on the 8th of
February 1768. His eldest son, James Dance (1722–1744), was born on the 17th of March 1722, and educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School and St John’s College, Oxford, which he left before graduating. He took the name of Love, and became an actor and playwright of no great merit. In the former capacity he was for twelve years connected with Drury Lane theatre. He wrote “an heroic poem” on Cricket, about 1740, and a volume
of Poems on Several Occasions (1754), and a number of comedies—the
earliest Pamela (1742).
George Dance’s third son, Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Bart. (1735–1811), was born on the 18th of May 1735, and studied art under Francis Hayman, and in Italy, where he met Angelica Kauffmann, to whom he was devotedly and hopelessly attached. From Rome he sent home “Dido and Aeneas” (1763), and he continued to paint occasional historical pictures of the same quasi-classic kind throughout his career. On his return to England he took up portrait-painting with great success, and contributed to the first exhibition of the Royal Academy, of which he was a foundation member, full-length portraits of George III. and his queen. These, and his portraits of Captain Cook and of Garrick as Richard III., engraved by Dixon, are his best-known works. Himself a rich man, in 1790 he married a widow with £15,000 a year, dropped his profession, and became M.P. for East Grinstead, taking the additional name of Holland. He was made a baronet in 1800. He died on the 15th of October 1811, leaving a fortune of £200,000.
George Dance’s fifth and youngest son, George Dance, the younger (1741–1825), succeeded his father as city surveyor and architect in 1768. He was then only twenty-seven, had spent several years abroad, chiefly in Italy with his brother Nathaniel, and had already distinguished himself by designs for Blackfriars Bridge sent to the 1761 exhibition of the Incorporated Society of Artists. His first important public work was the rebuilding of Newgate prison in 1770. The front of the Guildhall was also his. He, too, was a foundation member of the Royal Academy, and for a number of years the last survivor of the forty original academicians. His last years were devoted to art rather than to architecture, and after 1798 his Academy contributions consisted solely of chalk portraits of his friends, seventy-two of which were engraved and published (1808–1814). He resigned his office in 1815, and after many years of illness died on the 14th of January 1825, and was buried in St Paul’s. His son, Charles Dance (1794–1863), was for thirty years registrar, taxing officer and chief clerk of the insolvent debtors’ court, retiring, when it was abolished, on an allowance. In collaboration with J. R. Planché and others, or alone, he wrote a great number of extravaganzas, farces and comediettas. He was one of the first, if not the first, of the burlesque writers, and was the author of those produced so successfully by Madame Vestris for years at the Olympic. Of his farces, Delicate Ground, Who Speaks First?, A Morning Call and others are still occasionally revived. He died on the 6th of January 1863.
DANCE (Fr. danse; of obscure origin, connected with Old High Ger. danson, to stretch). The term “dancing” in its widest sense includes three things:—(1) the spontaneous activity
of the muscles under the influence of some strong emotion, such as social joy or religious exultation; (2) definite combinations of graceful movements performed for the sake of the pleasure
