the bishop’s bailiff, and the holders of the burgages composed the juries of the bishop’s courts leet and baron. No charter of incorporation is extant, but in 1563 contests were carried on under the name of the bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty, and a list of borough accounts exists for 1696. The bishop appointed the last borough bailiff in 1681, and though the inhabitants in 1772 petitioned for a bailiff the town remained under a steward and grassmen until the 19th century. As part of the palatinate of Durham, Gateshead was not represented in parliament until 1832. At the inquisition of 1336 the burgesses claimed an annual fair on St Peter’s Day, and depositions in 1577 mention a borough market held on Tuesday and Friday, but these were apparently extinct in Camden’s day, and no grant of them is extant. The medieval trade seems to have centred round the fisheries and the neighbouring coal mines which are mentioned in 1364 and also by Leland.
GATH, one of the five chief cities of the Philistines. It is
frequently mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament,
and from Amos vi. 2 we conclude that, like Ashdod, it fell to
Sargon in 711. Its site appears to have been known in the 4th
century, but the name is now lost. Eusebius (in the Onomasticon)
places it near the road from Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrīn) to
Diospolis (Ludd) about five Roman miles from the former. The
Roman road between these two towns is still traceable, and its
milestones remain in places. East of the road at the required
distance rises a white cliff, almost isolated, 300 ft. high and
full of caves. On the top is the little mud village of Tell eṣ-Ṣāfi
(“the shining mound”), and beside the village is the mound
which marks the site of the Crusaders’ castle of Blanchegarde
(Alba Custodia), built in 1144. Tell eṣ-Ṣāfi was known by its
present name as far back as the 12th century; but it appears
not improbable that the strong site here existing represents
the ancient Gath. The cliff stands on the south side of the
mouth of the Valley of Elah, and Gath appears to have been
near this valley (1 Sam. xvii. 2, 52). This identification is not
certain, but it is at least much more probable than the theory
which makes Gath, Eleutheropolis, and Beit Jibrīn one and the
same place. The site was partially excavated by the Palestine
Exploration Fund in 1899, and remains extending in date
back to the early Canaanite period were discovered.
GATLING, RICHARD JORDAN (1818–1903), American inventor,
was born in Hertford county, North Carolina, on the
12th of September 1818. He was the son of a well-to-do planter
and slave-owner, from whom he inherited a genius for mechanical
invention and whom he assisted in the construction and perfecting
of machines for sowing cotton seeds, and for thinning the plants.
He was well educated and was successively a school teacher and a
merchant, spending all his spare time in developing new inventions.
In 1839 he perfected a practical screw propeller for steamboats,
only to find that a patent had been granted to John
Ericsson for a similar invention a few months earlier. He established
himself in St Louis, Missouri, and taking the cotton-sowing
machine as a basis he adapted it for sowing rice, wheat and
other grains, and established factories for its manufacture. The
introduction of these machines did much to revolutionize the
agricultural system in the country. Becoming interested in the
study of medicine through an attack of smallpox, he completed a
course at the Ohio Medical College, taking his M.D. degree in 1850.
In the same year he invented a hemp-breaking machine, and in
1857 a steam plough. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was
living in Indianapolis, and devoted himself at once to the perfecting
of fire-arms. In 1861 he conceived the idea of the rapid fire
machine-gun which is associated with his name. By 1862 he
had succeeded in perfecting a gun that would discharge 350
shots per minute; but the war was practically over before the
Federal authorities consented to its official adoption. From that
time, however, the success of the invention was assured, and
within ten years it had been adopted by almost every civilized
nation. Gatling died in New York City on the 26th of February
1903.
GATTY, MARGARET (1809–1873), English writer, daughter of
the Rev. Alexander Scott (1768–1840), chaplain to Lord Nelson,
was born at Burnham, Essex, in 1809. She early began to draw
and to etch on copper, being a regular visitor to the print-room
of the British Museum from the age of ten. She also illuminated
on vellum, copying the old strawberry borders and designing
initials. In 1839 Margaret Scott married the Rev. Alfred Gatty,
D.D., vicar of Ecclesfield near Sheffield, subdean of York
cathedral, and the author of various works both secular and religious.
In 1842 she published in association with her husband a
life of her father; but her first independent work was The Fairy
Godmother and other Tales, which appeared in 1851. This was
followed in 1855 by the first of five volumes of Parables from
Nature, the last being published in 1871. It was under the nom
de plume of Aunt Judy, as a pleasant and instructive writer for
children, that Mrs Gatty was most widely known. Before starting
Aunt Judy’s Magazine in May 1866, she had brought out
Aunt Judy’s Tales (1858) and Aunt Judy’s Letters (1862), and
among the other children’s books which she subsequently
published were Aunt Judy’s Song Book for Children and The
Mother’s Book of Poetry. “Aunt Judy” was the nickname given
by her daughter Juliana Horatia Ewing (q.v.). The editor of the
magazine was on the friendliest terms with her young correspondents
and subscribers, and her success was largely due to the
sympathy which enabled her to look at things from the child’s
point of view. Besides other excellences her children’s books
are specially characterized by wholesomeness of sentiment and
cheerful humour. Her miscellaneous writings include, in addition
to several volumes of tales, The Old Folks from Home, an account
of a holiday ramble in Ireland; The Travels and Adventures of
Dr Wolff the Missionary (1861), an autobiography edited by
her; British Sea Weeds (1862); Waifs and Strays of Natural
History (1871); A Book of Emblems and The Book of Sun-Dials
(1872). She died at Ecclesfield vicarage on the 4th of
October 1873.
GAU, JOHN (c. 1495–? 1553), Scottish translator, was born at
Perth towards the close of the 15th century. He was educated
in St Salvator’s College at St Andrews. He appears to have been
in residence at Malmö in 1533, perhaps as chaplain to the Scots
community there. In that year John Hochstraten, the exiled
Antwerp printer, issued a book by Gau entitled: The Richt vay
to the Kingdome of Heuine, of which the chief interest is that it is
the first Scottish book written on the side of the Reformers. It is
a translation of Christiern Pedersen’s Den rette vey till Hiemmerigis
Rige (Antwerp, 1531), for the most part direct, but showing
intimate knowledge in places of the German edition of Urbanus
Rhegius. Only one copy of Gau’s text is extant, in the library of
Britwell Court, Bucks. It has been assumed that all the copies
were shipped from Malmö to Scotland, and that the cargo was
intercepted by the Scottish officers on the look out for the
heretical works which were printed abroad in large numbers.
This may explain the silence of all the historians of the Reformed
Church—Knox, Calderwood and Spottiswood. Gau married in
1536 a Malmö citizen’s daughter, bearing the Christian name
Birgitta. She died in 1551, and he in or about 1553.
The first reference to the Richt Vay appeared in Chalmers’s Caledonia, ii. 616. Chalmers, who was the owner of the unique volume before it passed into the Britwell Court collection, considered it to be an original work. David Laing printed extracts for the Bannatyne Club (Miscellany, iii., 1855). The evidence that the book is a translation was first given by Sonnenstein Wendt in a paper “Om Reformatorerna i Malmö,” in Rördam’s Ny Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, ii. (Copenhagen, 1860). A complete edition was edited by A. F. Mitchell for the Scottish Text Society (1888). See also Lorimer’s Patrick Hamilton.
GAUDEN, JOHN (1605–1662), English bishop and writer,
reputed author of the Eikon Basilike, was born in 1605 at Mayland,
Essex, where his father was vicar of the parish. Educated
at Bury St Edmunds school and at St John’s College, Cambridge,
he took his M.A. degree in 1625/6. He married Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir William Russell of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire,
and was tutor at Oxford to two of his wife’s brothers. He seems
to have remained at Oxford until 1630, when he became vicar of
Chippenham. His sympathies were at first with the parliamentary
party. He was chaplain to Robert Rich, second earl of
Warwick, and preached before the House of Commons in 1640.
